The Wooden Spoon

Spinach and Sausage Soup

2010-12-19T13:19:00.000-05:00

For our Healthy Thanksgiving, I went in search of soup recipes that were broths instead of creams. To my dismay, the “fall” or “harvest” soups all contained squash. And we all know what happened the last time I peeled and cut up squash. I gave up my search, but not before bookmarking an intriguing recipe that I came across while exploring “you might also like” links.

This recipe has all of the usual vegetables (except squash) found in vegetable soups with the interesting addition of pearl barley and Italian sausage. I have to admit that my first reaction to reading “1 pound mild Italian sausage” was Yuck! Italian sausage and vegetable soup are not something that go together well.

For some reason, I kept going back to it and finally bookmarked it when I got tired of following links to find it. One crisp autumn day when I knew that I would be outside most of the afternoon, soup seemed like the perfect dish to chase away the chill. I decided to try this recipe.

Making it was simple. Even though I forgot to buy the spinach, the end result was delicious. The perfect antidote to a damp, chilly day. It is one of those rare dishes that is just as good the first day as it is the second day. In spite of my initial aversion, the Italian sausage was the perfect complement to the vegetables and barley. I didn’t drain the sausage enough before adding it to the soup because the next day, there was a thick layer of fat on the soup when I took it out of the fridge. I scraped it off before reheating. That got me thinking that I needed to find a low fat alternative to the sausage. Why not turkey?

Specifically leftover turkey from Thanksgiving. Instead of my usual pot pies, I would make this healthy soup and substitute turkey for the sausage. This time, the soup was very, very bland. I realized that the seasoning in the sausage had transferred to the soup, giving it loads of flavor. To make a turkey version, I need to add more seasoning than just salt, pepper and fresh thyme.

Verdict: Yum!! This one’s a keeper!!

Spinach and Sausage Soup
(source: Pinch My Salt)

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
3 carrots, peeled and sliced
2 stalks of celery, sliced
1 pound red potatoes, cut into bite size pieces
5-6 cups chicken stock (homemade, or low-sodium broth)
½ cup pearl barley
1 pound mild Italian sausage
1 large bunch of spinach, thick stems removed, roughly chopped (about 4 cups packed)
Salt, to taste
Herbs or seasoning of your choice – I used some fresh thyme

Heat olive oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add onions, carrots, and celery and cook, stirring occasionally, for 8-10 minutes or until onions are softened. Add potatoes, 5 cups of stock, and barley. Turn up heat, bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer uncovered for 30-45 minutes or until barley is tender. Meanwhile, squeeze sausage from its casings, crumble and brown it in a skillet. Drain fat and set the sausage aside. When barley is tender, add spinach and sausage to the soup and fresh herbs if you are using them. Add more stock if necessary or desired, bring soup back up to a simmer and let cook for another 15 minutes. Season to taste with and pepper.

Serves 6

Recycle: olive oil bottle

Compost: onion skins, celery leaves, spinach stems

Rustic Pear Pie

2010-12-15T12:55:00.001-05:00

I’ve had a heavenly recipe for sweet potato pie bookmarked for quite a while. I was sure that I could use it for our Healthy Thanksgiving. Sweet potatoes are healthier than pumpkins. But, like regular potatoes, the problem was what was added to them to make the pie filling: butter, sugar, milk and eggs.

Back to the drawing board or, rather, my recipe basket. I have a large basket where I throw copies of interesting recipes I come across in print publications. I knew that somewhere in that basket was a recipe for a pear pie that did not involve most of the unhealthy ingredients found in pumpkin and sweet potato pie recipes. It took a little digging, but I found it. It was part of a menu from the April 1, 2006 issue of Family Circle Magazine.

The recipe calls for a prepared piecrust. I opted for a homemade one using a recipe from Martha Stewart. I called on A’s expertise (she works in the nutrition field) to determine which was healthier, shortening or butter. She recommended I go with butter because it has far less trans-fats than shortening. With this in mind, I used Martha’s Basic Pie Crust which makes enough for a single crust pie.

I liked this recipe because it uses a food processor to blend the ingredients. I was surprised at how effortlessly the pastry came together. I’m seriously considering using my food processor for all of my pie crusts despite the fact that it is a pain to clean. This was also the easiest pastry I have ever rolled. In the future, I think I will use a shortening crust with this recipe because when it came time to fold the pastry over the pear filling, the pastry was quite limp. Instead of forming a nice pocket as you would expect from a stiffer shortening crust, Martha’s butter crust was more like wrapping the filling in a scarf.

I discovered that my A&P carries three varieties of pears, Anjou, Bartlett and Bosc. I don’t know if there are any taste differences but in terms of size, three Bartlett pears weigh almost exactly 1 ½ pounds as called for in the recipe. The recipe doesn’t specify that you should peel the pears but I couldn’t imagine that leaving the skins on would enhance the flavor or texture, so I peeled them. Unlike the Mushroom-Wild Rice stuffing, the 1/8 teaspoon of nutmeg enhanced, rather than overpowered, the pears and brown sugar. I left out the butter and could also have skipped the milk and sugar on the crust.

The end result was delicious. The recipe recommends the pie be served warm but I also liked it straight out of the refrigerator the next day. I’ve now added another fruit pie to my small repertoire.

Verdict: Yum!! This one’s a keeper!!

Basic Pie Crust(source: Martha Stewart)

1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled), plus more for rolling
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon sugar
½ cup (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
2 to 4 tablespoons ice water

In a food processor, briefly pulse flour, salt, and sugar. Add butter; pulse until mixture resembles coarse meal, with a few pea-size pieces of butter remaining. Sprinkle with 2 tablespoons ice water. Pulse until dough is crumbly but holds together when squeezed (if necessary, add up to 2 tablespoons water, 1 tablespoon at a time). Don’t overmix.

Turn dough out onto a large piece of plastic wrap. Fold plastic over dough; press to shape into a 1-inch-thick disk. Refrigerate until firm, at least 1 hour (or up to 3 days).

On a floured piece of parchment paper, roll dough to a 14-inch round with a floured rolling pin. Wrap dough around rolling pin, discarding paper; unroll over a 9-inch pie plate. Gently fit into bottom and up sides of plate (do not stretch dough).

Using kitchen shears, trim dough to a 1-inch overhang. Fold under itself to form a rim, and press to seal. Using thumb and forefinger, crimp rim of crust. Refrigerate until ready to use, up to 1 day.

One 9-inch crust.

Rustic Pear Pie(source: Family Circle Magazine, April 1, 2006 issue)

3 ripe but firm Bartlett pears (about 1 ½ pounds total)
¼ cup light-brown sugar
⅛ teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 refrigerated prepared piecrust (from a 15-ounce box)
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, cut up
1 tablespoon heavy cream or milk

Heat oven to 400°.

Cut pears in half; remove cores. Cut in thin slices. In large bowl, toss with 3 tablespoons of the sugar and the nutmeg.

Place piecrust on work surface; gently roll out to 14 inches in diameter and place on ungreased baking sheet. Mound pear slices in center, leaving a 2-inch border. Dot butter over pears. Fold edge of crust up and partway over filling. Repair any tears by pressing pastry together. Brush pastry edge with cream. Sprinkle with the remaining sugar.

Bake on the bottom shelf at 400° for 35 minutes until filling is hot and crust is golden; place foil loosely over pie if crust browns too quickly. Let cool on pan or rack 10 minutes before serving. Can be baked ahead and reheated at 400° until warmed through. Serve with ice cream, if desired.

Compost: pear cores and skins

Christmas Cookie of the Week - Angelettis

2010-12-12T23:52:00.001-05:00

As I have noted previously, baking Christmas cookies was not a holiday tradition in my family. Because I’m not sure what is considered a Christmas cookie, I rely on lists such "Classic Christmas Cookies" or "Favorite Christmas Cookies" to guide me. Martha Stewart has several slide shows showcasing Christmas cookies on her site. While most of the cookies are familiar to me, a few are not.

I had never heard of Angelettis. The picture didn’t even seem attractive which I found surprising considering how meticulous Martha is (see below). A quick glance at the ingredients only pointed up two unusual ingredients, anise extract used in the cookies and lemon juice used in the icing. I decided to try them out to discover why Martha is so keen on them.

Like most Martha Stewart recipes, this one is very rich. It uses 6 eggs in the cookie batter and an entire box (16 ounces) of confectioners’ sugar in the icing. My only quibble with her is with the size of the bowl used to sift the dry ingredients into. Four cups of flour is a lot of four and requires a large bowl, not a medium bowl. Be very careful adding the dry ingredients to the liquid ingredients. They take a bit longer than usual to be incorporated into the liquid. Keep your mixer on low. Any faster and you should be prepared to be enveloped in a cloud of flour. The batter is very stiff, but scoops nicely into balls. I was surprised when they kept their shape instead of spreading out while baking. Fifteen minutes seemed long, but was exactly right.

Next up was the icing. Believe it or not, ¼ cup of lemon juice and 2 tablespoons of water will dissolve an entire pound of confectioners’ sugar. The result is rather tart. I was hesitant to use it on the cookies which tasted great on their own but I was glad I did. Once on the cookies, the lemon taste was not obvious. It added a little tang to an otherwise very sweet cookie.

It turns out that I know these cookies. I have eaten them in the past. I can’t remember when or where, just that they were really good. Now I’m glad to have the recipe and to add it to my cookie repertoire.

Verdict: Yum!! This one’s a keeper!!

Angelettis(source: MarthaStewart.com)

4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
1 cup granulated sugar
6 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla or anise extract
1 box (16 ounce) confectioners’ sugar
¼ cup lemon juice
Coarse sanding sugar, for decorating

Preheat oven to 350°F. In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream butter and granulated sugar until light and fluffy. On medium speed, add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add vanilla; beat until is incorporated. With mixer on, gradually add four mixture; beat until dough comes together.

Scoop dough into tablespoon-size balls onto a baking sheet lined with parchment or a nonstick baking mat. Bake until golden brown, about 15 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Meanwhile, stir together confectioners’ sugar, lemon juice, and 2 tablespoons water. Place wire rack over a rimmed baking sheet. Once cookies have cooled, top with icing. Sprinkle with sugar, and let stand until icing is firm.

Makes about 6 dozen.

Recycle: vanilla or anise extract bottle

Compost: eggshells

Easy Roasted Potatoes

2010-12-08T13:21:00.001-05:00

Do potatoes fit into a healthy Thanksgiving? It all depends on the preparation. Potatoes themselves are quite healthy. It’s what you put on them that renders them unhealthy. Sour cream, butter, cheese, gravy and, of course, the whole milk or cream used in mashed potatoes.

For our Healthy Thanksgiving, I was in search of a roasted potato recipe. I envisioned a little oil, a little salt, a little pepper, pop them in the oven and presto! Healthy potatoes. Reality rarely lives up to my imagination.

It seems that you can either fry them in oil or roast them in butter. I did find one recipe on BHG.com that roasted potatoes in olive oil, but used onion powder instead of “real” onions. I wasn’t happy about it, but beggars can’t be choosers.

I was intrigued by the use of baby potatoes. The ones I bought weren’t all that tiny. At least not tiny enough so that halved I was confident that they would cook all the way through. Potatoes, like carrots, are very dense and require a long to cook. There’s nothing worse than uncooked potatoes or carrots in a dish. Just to be safe, I cut up some of the larger potatoes into quarters instead of halves.

My biggest problem turned out to be logistics. I solved the one-oven problem by cooking the stuffing on top of the stove instead of baking it in the oven. But there was no getting around the fact that roasted potatoes, like roasted turkey, need to be in the oven. And potatoes need a long time to cook. In this case, 60 minutes. Turkey needs 30 minutes to "rest" after cooking, so I was left with a 30 minute overlap in the oven.

I finally solved the problem when I realized that a small turkey uses a small pan, so I could turn it sideways and slide the potatoes and their pan in right next to it. Phew! That was close.

In the end, I was correct about the size of the potatoes, as well as the onion powder. The potatoes didn’t cook all the way through and I didn’t care for the chemical taste of the onion powder. Real onions would have been preferable. The garlic was also an unwelcome guest to our feast. I think a little bit of poultry seasoning would have been more appropriate.

Verdict: What were they thinking???

Easy Roasted Potatoes(source: BHG.com)

3 medium round red or white potatoes (1 pound), cut into eighths, or 10 to 12 tiny new potatoes (1 pound) halved
2 tablespoons olive oil
½ teaspoon onion powder
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon black pepper
⅛ teaspoon paprika
1 clove garlic, minced

Place potatoes in a greased 9x9x2-inch baking pan. In a small bowl combine oil, onion powder, salt, pepper, paprika, and garlic. Drizzle oil mixture over potatoes, tossing to coat. Roast, uncovered, in a 325°F oven for 45 minutes. Stir potatoes; bake for 10 to 20 minutes more or until potatoes are tender and brown on the edges.

Makes 4 servings.

Recycle: olive oil bottle

Compost: garlic skins

Mushroom-Wild Rice Stuffing

2010-12-05T13:09:00.009-05:00

My search for a stuffing recipe for our healthy Thanksgiving had two parameters. It had to be healthy and it had to be cooked on top of the stove. I don’t have room in my oven for both a turkey and a dish of stuffing. My dream kitchen has two ovens. For now, I have to deal with a kitchen with only one.

When A and I were discussing the possibility of doing a healthy Thanksgiving, wild rice stuffing came immediately to mind. Whole grain, no nasty carbs and it’s cooked in water, not butter. Turns out that I was wrong about that last point. Seems every recipe I looked at, had butter in it.

I finally settled on a recipe from one of my favorite recipe sites, BHG.com. Not only is it cooked in water, but it also has a variety of fresh mushrooms, an excellent source of minerals such potassium. Healthy, indeed.

It should have occurred to me that if the rice recipe I normally make calls for 2 cups of water and 1 ½ cups of rice resulting in 6 servings, then a recipe that uses 4 cups of water and 2 cups of rice was going to result in a huge amount of rice. The line "Makes 12 servings" should likewise have been a clue.

I should also have done some quick conversions when I put mushrooms on my shopping list. One cup equals 8 ounces, so 8 cups equals … a lot of mushrooms. I bought two packages of 8 ounces each. One each of button and baby Portobello, conveniently pre-sliced.

Lastly, I should have done some comparisons among recipes that use nutmeg. My initial impression was that nutmeg would give it an interesting flavor. As it indeed might if only 1/8 teaspoon were used, but an entire teaspoon of nutmeg completely overwhelmed the delicate flavors of the mushrooms and rice and ruined this dish.

I would like to try this recipe again, but cut it in half, use chicken stock and just a pinch of nutmeg.

Verdict: What were they thinking???

Mushroom-Wild Rice Stuffing(source: BHG.com)

1 cup uncooked wild rice
4 cups water
1 cup uncooked brown rice
1 tablespoon instant chicken bouillon granules
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
8 cups sliced fresh mushrooms (such as stemmed shiitake, baby Portobello, and/or button)
2 cups chopped celery
1 cup chopped onion
2 cups shredded carrots

Rinse wild rice in a strainer under cold water about 1 minute. In a 4-quart Dutch oven, combine wild rice, the 4 cups water, the brown rice, bouillon granules, salt, and nutmeg. Bring to boiling; reduce heat. Cover and simmer for 20 minutes.

Stir in mushrooms, celery, and onion. Return to boiling; reduce heat to medium-low. Cover and cook about 25 minutes more or until rice is tender, stirring occasionally. Drain. Stir in carrots. Serve immediately. Makes 12 servings.

Make-Ahead Tip: Prepare Mushroom-wild Rice Stuffing as directed; spoon into a 3-quart casserole. Cover and refrigerate for up to 24 hours. Bake, covered, in a 325 degree oven for 65 to 75 minutes or until heated through.

Compost: celery leaves, onion skins

OldRoses’ Brined Turkey

2010-12-01T13:21:00.001-05:00

This recipe is still evolving. Stay tuned for annual updates on upcoming Thanksgivings.

I decided to join the 21st century this year and brine my turkey. Actually, I decided last year, but the recipe that I was using called for a dry brine which seemed counter-intuitive. I made a mental note to look into "wet" brining this year.

Last December I made a Cuban Pork dish for Christmas that required the meat be marinated overnight. I wasn’t able to find cooking bags at the grocery store, so I improvised with a clean, unused garbage bag. I placed the marinade and the pork shoulder in the bag, which was in turn placed in a large salad bowl on the bottom shelf of my refrigerator. The meat was turned periodically to ensure that all of it marinated properly.

My plan was to do the something similar to my turkey this year. I found cooking bags, not where I was looking for them last year in the plastic bags aisle, but in the "seasonal aisle" where A&P had helpfully assembled everything you could possibly need to cook a Thanksgiving meal. They were probably in that aisle last year also, I just wasn’t looking there.

All of the brining recipes I saw online required that the brine be cooked and then cooled. I was pressed for time this year, so cooking and cooling were out of the questions. I thought I had found a recipe that didn’t require pre-cooking the brine but when I looked at it Thursday morning, I realized that I was wrong.

Of course this is my kitchen where nothing ever goes right. The first roadblock that I ran into was that this turkey was too large for my big salad bowl. I didn’t realize that a 12 pound turkey was so large or that my salad bowl was so small. The second roadblock was the thinness of the bags. These bags were meant to cook the turkey in. I don’t know if there are special "brining" bags as opposed to "brown in" bags. And the third thing to go terribly wrong that morning (bad things always seem to come in threes) was that I didn’t have all of the (correct) ingredients for the brine.

No problem. I just improvised. I placed the turkey in the bag on the counter. I partially filled the bag with water using the sprayer. I dumped in 1 cup of sea salt instead of the proper amount of kosher salt, several hard shakes of ground pepper instead of pepper corns, ½ bunch of fresh thyme instead of a whole bunch and 5 bay leaves that have been sitting in my cupboard for an unknown period of time. I omitted the sugar because our theme was "A Healthy Thanksgiving". Besides, I couldn’t wrap my head around adding sugar to what seemed like a perfectly respectable brine/marinade.

I added more water and then I tried to close the bag. This is where I began to run into serious trouble. No matter how tightly I twisted the twisty tie, the water kept going sideways instead of up and covering the turkey. Plus, that bag seemed awfully thin. Was it strong enough to hold a 12 pound turkey and several gallons of water? I didn’t have a container large enough to put it in. I began to have visions of putting the bag in my fridge before work then returning home to find that it had burst while I was out, leaking all over my refrigerator and kitchen floor.

What to do, what to do.

I know! Garbage bags are really strong. How about I put the turkey bag inside a garbage bag? That way, if the turkey bag breaks, the garbage bag will hold all the water instead of spilling it. I should become a spokesperson for Glad Trash Bags.

I’m happy to report that the thin turkey bag didn’t burst. It seemed almost a shame to rinse all of those lovely ingredients from the turkey on Thursday morning, but I needed to get as much salt off the turkey as possible.

I was making wild rice stuffing on top of the stove, so I stuffed the turkey with the same herbs and apples that were so successfully last year.

Basting, as I discovered in my research, has become controversial. One school of thought says that pre-basted turkeys don’t need basting while another school of thought says that basting is done primarily to ensure the skin cooks and browns properly. A third school of thought says that constantly opening the oven door to baste the turkey lowers the temperature of the oven and prevents the turkey from cooking properly. I baste because I am old-fashioned. Normally I use butter but for our healthy meal, I decided to go with prepared chicken broth.

A recipe that I saw online recommended adding your choice of herbs to the broth such as sage or thyme. I couldn’t decide which to use, so I used them all by adding poultry seasoning. The broth that I used was Kitchen Basics, recommended by the Taste of Home Cooking School that A and I attended. I had previously used it in a soup recipe which came out very salty. Thanks to the brining and chicken broth, our gravy was much too salty.

Verdict: Needs work.

OldRoses’ Brined Turkey

OldRoses’ No-Cook Brine
1 cup sea salt
½ bunch fresh thyme
1 tablespoon ground pepper
5 bay leaves

Stuffing
1 ½ teaspoons black pepper
10 sprigs fresh thyme
½ bunch flat leaf parsley
2 small onions, halved
2 small apples, cored and halved

Baste
1 8 oz container chicken broth
1 teaspoon poultry seasoning

Place turkey in a large plastic bag and partially fill it with water. Add brine ingredients. Add more water until turkey is covered. Refrigerate for 8 to 12 hours.

Heat oven to 325°F. Discard brine and rinse turkey well. Pat dry with paper towels. Sprinkle the pepper into main cavity of turkey; add thyme, parsley, half the onions and half the apples. Truss legs with kitchen twine. Put remaining apples and onions in neck opening and tuck neck skin under bird. Baste with seasoned chicken broth.

Cook a 12 pound bird for 4 to 4 ½ hours or until a meat thermometer registers 180°F, basting every 30 minutes.

Compost: parsley stems, onion skins and apple skins

Christmas Cookie of the Week - Gingerbread Boys

2010-11-28T23:00:00.001-05:00

I bought my Betty Crocker cookbook in 1980. It is the 1974 edition and showing its age. Not only are some of the ingredients outmoded, the names of some of the recipes are definitely non-PC. For instance, the recipe for gingerbread cookies is called "Gingerbread Boys".

Comparing this recipe to the one I made last year, really shows up its age. Shortening instead of butter, no egg versus 1 egg, ¾ teaspoon of salt (yikes!) compared to ¼ teaspoon, ungreased baking sheet versus greased baking sheet. Betty’s version was also more difficult to roll out. The dough is very sticky.

The cookies came out perfectly. When all was said and done, I have to admit that Betty won the taste test hands down. This is the way to make gingerbread boys (and girls).

Verdict: Yum!! This one’s a keeper!!

Gingerbread Boys(Source: Betty Crocker’s Cookbook, 1974 ed.)

½ cup shortening
½ cup sugar
½ cup dark molasses
¼ cup water
2 ½ cups all-purpose flour*
¾ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon soda
¾ teaspoon ginger
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon allspice
Raisins
Candied cherries or red gumdrops
Citron
String licorice
Decorators’ Icing

Cream shortening and sugar. Blend in molasses, water, flour, salt, soda, ginger, nutmeg and all-spice. Cover; chill 2 to 3 hours.

Heat oven to 375°. Roll dough ¼ inch thick on lightly floured cloth-covered board. Cut with gingerbread boy cutter; place on ungreased baking sheet.

Press raisins into dough for eyes, nose and buttons. Use bits of candied cherries and strips of citron and string licorice for other trims. Bake 10 to 12 minutes. Immediately remove from baking sheet. Cool. Trim with Decorators’ Icing.

About fifteen 4-inch cookies.

*If using self-rising flour, omit salt and soda. If using quick-mixing flour, add 3 tablespoons milk.

Note: For crisper cookies, roll dough 1/8 inch thick. Bake 8 minutes. About 2 dozen cookies.

Recycle: molasses bottle

A Healthy Thanksgiving

2010-11-25T23:19:00.005-05:00

OldRoses’ Brined Turkey
Mushroom-Wild Rice Stuffing
Easy Roasted Potatoes
Maple Glazed Sweet Potatoes
Cranberry-Orange Relish
Whole Wheat Bread
Rustic Pear Pie

In searching for a theme for our Thanksgiving meal this year, we took note of the effort of our First Lady, Michelle Obama, to encourage healthy eating habits especially among children. We surfed the web and scoured our cookbooks for healthy alternatives to the traditional Thanksgiving menu. We hope that our meal will inspire our readers to consider dishes with less salt, fat and calories for their own holiday meals.

Christmas Cookie of the Week - Snickerdoodles

2010-11-21T23:21:00.001-05:00

I started my holiday baking early this year because … does anyone really need a reason to start their holiday baking early? Maybe it’s because of all the pre-Thanksgiving Black Friday sales that it feels like the Christmas season is upon us.

Christmas cookie baking was not a tradition in my family, so I am unfamiliar with a lot of the traditional recipes. I saw this recipe on the Martha Stewart site last year, but ran out of time before I could try it out. So I bookmarked it for this year. I just liked the name.

I was kind of at loose ends this weekend, craving something sweet but feeling too lazy to bake anything complicated. Cookies came to mind, then Christmas cookies and Snickerdoodles popped up. It seemed like an easy and fun recipe to try.

A and I recently attended a cooking class sponsored by Taste of Home. One of the things I learned was that the difference between parchment paper and wax paper is that parchment paper has more paper than wax and wax paper has more wax than paper. I’ve been substituting wax paper for years because it’s what I have on hand. I’m more confident now in my substitution and didn’t hesitate to line my cookie sheets with wax paper rather than Martha’s recommended parchment paper.

She doesn’t say whether the butter should be softened or not, so relying on my years of baking experience, I softened the butter before using it. It didn’t affect the end result at all that I can tell.

Martha, perfectionist that she is, uses an ice cream scoop to form balls of dough. My ice cream scoop is like the ones used by “professional” ice cream scoopers rather than the round ones favored by Martha and her ilk. So I just used a spoon to scoop out small amounts of dough which I then hand rolled as I do for meatballs. Balls of batter are much more fragile than balls of meat, so they lost some of their shape, becoming a bit bumpy, when I rolled them in the cinnamon sugar. Fear not! They baked into attractive round cookies which did indeed spread quite a bit as they cooked.

I’m a much lazier cook than Martha, so I couldn’t be bothered with two baking sheets on different racks in the oven, rotating them halfway through their baking times. I baked my cookies one dozen at a time, one cookie sheet at a time in the middle of the oven and they came out perfectly.

As for the taste, well, that’s a little difficult because I’ve never tasted a Snickerdoodle before. I can say that I don’t care much for the taste of the cream of tartar and the amount of cinnamon needed to counteract that taste is too much. I felt like I had overdosed on cinnamon after eating only one cookie.

Verdict: Not bad, but I won’t be making this one again.

Snickerdoodles(source: MarthaStewart.com)

2 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter
½ cup pure vegetable shortening
1 ¾ cups sugar, plus more if needed
2 tablespoons ground cinnamon, plus more if needed
2 large eggs

Preheat the oven to 400°F, with one rack in top third and one rack in bottom third of oven. Line baking sheets with Silpat baking mats or parchment paper; set aside.

Sift together flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt; set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, combine butter, shortening, and 1 ½ cups sugar. Beat on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Scrape down sides of bowl. Add eggs, and beat to combine. Add dry ingredients, and beat to combine.

In a small bowl, combine remaining ¼ cup sugar and the ground cinnamon. Use a small (1 ¼-ounce) ice-cream scoop to form balls of the dough, and roll in cinnamon sugar. Place about 2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheets. Bake until the cookies are set in center and begin to crack (they will not brown), about 10 minutes, rotating the baking sheets after 5 minutes. Transfer the sheets to a wire rack to cool about 5 minutes before transferring the cookies to the rack. Store in an airtight container up to 1 week.

Makes 4 dozen.

Recycle: cream of tartar and cinnamon bottles

Compost: eggshells

Moroccan-Spiced Seared Scallops with Green Grape and Lemon Relish

2010-10-10T23:44:00.000-04:00

First of all, I have to confess that I didn’t make this entire recipe. There is a huge controversy in the comments section over the “preserved-lemon shortcut”, some saying that it works and others that it is totally implausible. Add in the fact that I am not a huge fan of grapes and you are left with spicy scallops. Which is all that I wanted anyways.

I learned my lesson with the shrimp salad and instead of ordering 1½ lbs of scallops at the seafood counter, I asked for 8 scallops. They weighed 0.8 lbs. Doubled, that would be 1.6 lbs. The recipe makes 4 servings and I was looking for two servings. So I would have to say that 1½ lbs of scallops is exactly right if you are cooking for four people.

I made a huge error with the spices. I wasn’t paying much attention to the directions and added a full teaspoon of cinnamon, instead of the ¼ teaspoon called for. I tried to remove some of the cinnamon (don’t ask). After the scallops were cooked, I was very disappointed that the seasonings seemed bland. I had been expecting something that would make my tongue dance, but all I got was vaguely cinnamon-y chalk. I blamed it on the excess cinnamon until I ate the leftovers the next day. People who hate cumin say that it tastes like a smelly armpit. I happen to love cumin so I couldn’t even imagine what they were talking about. I can now. Overnight, the cumin had successfully wrested control of the flavor from the cinnamon and I can truthfully say that the second time around the scallops tasted like a smelly armpit.

Much like the controversial “preserved-lemon shortcut”, the cooking instructions for the scallops are completely implausible. If you sear a scallop on the outside, leaving the center translucent and repeat the same operation on the other side, you end up with a scallop that is cooked on the outside and raw on the inside. That’s what translucency means in a scallop: raw. Raw scallops don’t have much flavor and I’m not even sure that they are safe to eat that way so I would recommend ignoring the cooking instructions and cooking the scallops until they are white all the way around.

Verdict: What were they thinking???

Moroccan-Spiced Seared Scallops with Green Grape and Lemon Relish(source: Fine Cooking)

1 medium lemon
Kosher salt
1 ½ cups seedless green grapes, quartered lengthwise and at room temperature
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 scallions, thinly sliced
2 Tbs. chopped fresh cilantro
2 Tbs. chopped fresh mint
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. sweet Hungarian paprika
1 tsp. ground turmeric
¼ tsp. ground cinnamon
¼ tsp. ground ginger
1 ½ lb. large all-natural “dry” sea scallops, side muscles removed
Freshly ground black pepper

Using a vegetable peeler, remove the zest from the lemon in strips (yellow part only). Reserve the lemon. In a small saucepan, combine the lemon zest with ½ cup water and 1 tsp. salt. Bring to a simmer over medium-low heat and cook until the liquid reduces to about 1 Tbs., about 10 minutes. Drain, rinse, drain again, and pat dry. Finely mince the lemon zest and combine it with the grapes, 2 Tbs. of the olive oil, scallions, cilantro, and mint in a medium bowl.

In a small bowl, combine the cumin, paprika, turmeric, cinnamon, and ginger.

Pat the scallops dry. Season them liberally with salt and pepper and coat them with the spice mixture.

Heat 1 Tbs. of the olive oil in a 12-inch nonstick skillet over medium-high heat until shimmering. Add half of the scallops and cook, turning once, until seared on the outside but still translucent in the center, 1 to 2 minutes per side. Transfer to a warm plate. Repeat with the remaining 1 Tbs. oil and scallops.

Divide the scallops among 4 plates and serve with the relish. Cut the reserved lemon into quarters and squeeze over the scallops and relish. Serve immediately.

Recycle: olive oil bottle

Compost: lemon peel, roots and ends of scallions, cilantro stems, mint stems,

Rustic Red Raspberry Turnovers

2010-09-29T13:22:00.000-04:00

Yuck! Blech! Eww! Dee-sgusting, as a younger relative of mine used to say. What started out as an experiment in new flavors and pastry technique ended up in the garbage. Seriously, doesn’t the title sound wonderful? And I was able to find fresh, organic raspberries on sale for half-off at the grocery store. This recipe was literally begging to be made.

Starting from the inside, the fruit filling was much too tart. So sour, in fact, that my ears hurt when I sampled the turnovers. I was intrigued by the use of cinnamon and nutmeg, spices I normally associate with apples, but their flavors were completely lost in overwhelming sourness of the raspberries.

I’m going to have to make a more concerted effort to find my heavy maple rolling pin. Rolling out refrigerated pastry with a wimpy rolling pin is just too difficult. I thought using my non-stick rolling pin with a sticky butter pastry would allow me to get away with little or no additional flour. Not as much as I would have liked.

And, yes, I have multiple rolling pins. I collect them along with wooden spoons. Perhaps I should rename this blog “The Rolling Pin and Wooden Spoon”?

I don’t recommend using old-fashioned wide champagne glasses as pastry cutters. I didn’t have a 4” round cookie cutter, so I substituted the glasses which are a little narrower. Their edges aren’t really sharp enough to easily make the cuts.

And lastly, if you run into this recipe online, ignore the comments recommending that you cut the baking time in half. As sensible as it sounds that 20 minutes at 400°F is too long for tiny pastries and will burn them, it’s not. I pulled mine out after 10 minutes, as the commenters recommended, and they had barely cooked. Nor was the taste anything special.

The one good thing to come out of this whole mess is that I discovered how easy it is to make pastry dough in a food processor. I may retire my trusty pastry blender.

Verdict: What were they thinking??

Rustic Red Raspberry Turnovers
(source: Fine Cooking)

Buttery Shortbread Pastry Dough

9 oz. (2 cups) bleached allpurpose flour
7 oz. (14 Tbs.) chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 large egg, lightly beaten
2 Tbs. granulated sugar
1 Tbs. chilled heavy cream
2 tsp. fresh lemon juice
1 tsp. table salt

In a food processor, combine the flour, butter, egg, sugar, cream, lemon juice, and salt and pulse until the dough starts gathering together in big clumps. Turn the dough out onto a counter and gather it together. Shaper the dough as directed in the recipe you’re making.

Yields enough dough for 1 single pie crust, 8 mini tarts, or 12 turnovers

Rustic Red Raspberry Turnovers

1 recipe Buttery Shortbread Pastry Dough
4 tsp. granulated sugar; more as needed
1 tbs. all-purpose flour
½ tsp. ground cinnamon
¼ tsp. ground nutmeg
2 cups (8 to 10oz.) fresh red raspberries, rinsed and air-dried or patted dry with paper towels
1 to 2 Tbs. milk

Divide the pastry in half. Pat each half into roughly a square shape about 1 inch thick, wrap each in plastic, and chill for 20 minutes.

Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment. On a lightly floured surface, using a floured rolling pin, roll out one square of the pastry into a 9x14-inch rectangle. If the dough is too sticky, dust it too with a little four. Cut the dough into six rounds, each about 4 inches in diameter. Remove the excess dough from around the rounds and discard or save for another use. Run a metal spatula under each round to separate it from the counter.

In a large bowl, stir the 4 tsp. sugar and the flour, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Add the raspberries and gently toss to coat. Taste and add more sugar if the fruit seems tart.

Put a heaping tablespoon of raspberries (three to six berries, depending on size) in a single layer on one half of each dough round. Press gently to flatten the berries a bit. Dampen the pastry edges with a little water and carefully fold the other side of the dough over the berries to make a half moon. Press the edges of the dough together with your fingers or the tines of a fork. If any small cracks formed in the, pinch them together as best you can with damp fingers. Use a spatula to transfer the turnovers to the baking sheet.

Repeat this process with the remaining half of the pastry dough and the rest of the berries. When all the turnovers are assemble, refrigerate for at least 15 min. and up to 4 hours. Meanwhile, position a rack in the middle of the oven and heat the oven to 400°F.

When ready to bake, brush the tops of the turnovers (but not the edges or they will get too brown) with the milk and sprinkle with sugar. Bake until golden brown, 20 to 25 min. Transfer to a rack to cool. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Compost: eggshell, lemon rind

Vegetable Curried Rice

2010-09-26T13:04:00.000-04:00

Stop reading. Go directly to the recipe and then your kitchen. You will be making this rice for dinner tonight. Yes, it’s that good. And so easy. I made it to accompany the lackluster Crumb-Coated Red Snapper. It was the only flavorful thing on my plate.

I have to confess that I left out the veggies and nuts. Corn makes me gag. I always pick out the peas from the fried rice when I get Chinese take-out. And as much as I like almonds, I don’t like my rice to be crunchy.

But even with most of its ingredients missing and canola oil substituted for the olive oil, this rice dish was a real treat. I will be making it often.

Please ignore all of the above if you are one of those unfortunate people who hate curry. I happen to love curry, so this is the perfect recipe for me.

Verdict: Yum!! This one’s a keeper!!

Vegetable Curried Rice
(source: Taste of Home)

½ cup uncooked long grain rice
1/3 cup chopped onion
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup reduced-sodium chicken broth or vegetable broth
½ teaspoon curry powder
¼ teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon ground turmeric
1/3 cup frozen corn thawed
1/3 cup frozen peas, thawed
¼ cup slivered almonds, toasted

In a small saucepan, cook rice and onion in oil until rice is lightly browned and onion is tender. Stir in the broth, curry powder, salt and turmeric. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 12 minutes.

Stir in corn and peas. Cover and simmer 3-6 minutes longer or until rice and vegetables are tender. Sprinkle with almonds.

Yield: 4 servings.

Recycle: olive oil bottle

Crumb-Coated Red Snapper

2010-09-22T13:10:00.000-04:00

Ah, the cool breezes of fall have arrived. As my windows have closed, my kitchen has opened. I can finally turn my stove on. For my inaugural fall meal, I chose a quick and easy fish fry. I’ve been trying to eat healthier, trying to stay away from fried and fatty foods, but since this recipe only uses two tablespoons of oil, it didn’t seem unhealthy.

I see a lot of fish recipes that call for Red Snapper but I can never seem to find it offered for sale. I substituted Tilapia. I also substituted canola oil for the olive oil. I just don’t like the taste of olive oil. Canola oil confers the same health benefits as olive oil without the heavy taste. Canola has now become my go-to oil.

I was quite disappointed with this recipe. The breading was what attracted me initially. I liked the idea of the Parmesan cheese and lemon-pepper combination of flavors but they disappointed. Perhaps the quantities need to be increased. This recipe was singularly tasteless.

Verdict: Totally tasteless

Crumb-Coated Red Snapper(source: Taste of Home)

½ cup dry bread crumbs
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
1 teaspoon lemon-pepper seasoning
¼ teaspoon salt
4 red snapper fillets (6 ounces each)
2 tablespoons olive oil

In a shallow bowl, combine the bread crumbs, cheese, lemon-pepper and salt; add fillets, one at a time, and turn to coat.

In a heavy skillet over medium heat, cook fillets in oil in batches for 4-5 minutes on each side or until fish flakes easily with a fork.

Yield: 4 servings

Recycle: oil bottle

Shrimp Salad Rolls with Tarragon & Chives

2010-09-19T13:01:00.000-04:00

This past summer was one of the hottest summers on record. Wait. Don’t I say that every year now? Gotta love global warming. My kitchen is normally closed during the summer, but I usually manage to sneak in a few meals during cool days. This year, I couldn’t even do that. The 90° days were relentless. I rapidly grew sick of salads, sandwiches and tuna salad and was desperate for some variety.

Thank goodness for email. I subscribe to several different recipe sites who send me daily or weekly emails full of seasonal recipes. Summer is not usually good because most of the recipes are barbeques and I don’t own a barbeque and, as noted above, I was sick and tired of salads and sandwiches. When this recipe arrived in my inbox, I perked right up. Not tuna and wraps could easily be substituted for the rolls. I don’t eat a lot of bread.

It also gave me a chance to try fresh tarragon. It was a revelation. I rarely use fresh spices, so I am accustomed to dishes needing 24 hours to reach full flavor. This recipe was fantastic from the first day. I’ll be adding tarragon to my herb garden next year.

Other than peeling all that shrimp, this is an easy recipe to make. You can eat it in rolls or wraps, or as a salad, like I did. I’ll definitely be trying the lobster variation next summer when my local grocery has a sale on lobster.

Verdict: Yum!! This one’s a keeper!!

Shrimp Salad Rolls with Tarragon and Chives
(source: Fine Cooking)

Kosher salt
2 lb. Large shrimp (31 to 40 per lb.), preferably easy-peel
¾ cup finely chopped celery with leaves
½ cup mayonnaise
¼ cup finely sliced fresh chives
1 Tbs. finely chopped fresh tarragon
1 Tbs. fresh lemon juice; more to taste
Freshly ground black pepper
6 hot dog rolls, preferably New England-style split-top rolls

Bring a large pot of well-salted water to a boil over high heat. Add the shrimp and cook, stirring, until bright pink and cooked through, about 2 minutes. The water needn’t return to a boil. Drain in a colander and run under cold water to stop the cooking. Shell the shrimp, devein if necessary, and cut into ½- to ¾-inch pieces.

In a large bowl, stir the celery, mayonnaise, chives, tarragon, lemon juice, ¼ tsp. salt, and ¼ tsp. pepper. Stir in the shrimp and season to taste with more lemon, salt and pepper.

Position a rack 6 inches from the broiler element and heat the broiler to high. Toast both outside surfaces of the rolls under the broiler, about 1 minute per side. Spoon the shrimp salad into the rolls, using about ⅔ cup per roll, and serve.

Variation: Make it a lobster roll: Substitute 1-1/2 lb. (4 cups) cooked lobster meat for the cooked shrimp.

Compost: leftover lemon, celery, chives and tarragon

Piecrust

2010-09-15T13:15:00.000-04:00

One would think by now that I would have learned the two most important rules in cooking: Never try out a new recipe when company is coming for dinner and never, ever enter an untried crust recipe in a pie baking contest.

Even I can’t believe that I had no idea how the crust tasted when I entered my pie on Saturday morning. Especially considering what I had gone through to get to that point. The Granny Smith apples that I had used in last year’s filling were a disaster. They were too tart and too hard. I don’t like my apple pies to be crunchy. Since I was going back to my regular filling, I decided that I needed to change my crust recipe. I took a peek into my Silver Palate Cookbook and fell in love. Pastry crusts with shortening or butter are familiar, but one with both? And who puts sugar in their pie crusts? I had to try it out.

I have arthritis in my hands, so mixing stiff pastries is difficult for me. I used chilled butter, but opted for room temperature shortening. Mixing wasn’t as difficult as I anticipated so I probably could have used chilled shortening also. As for the ice water, I distinctly remember the woman who gave me the cookbook and who was also the most fabulous cook I had ever met, told me that ice water in pie crusts was absolutely necessary. Cold water wouldn’t do. It had to be ice water. So I gamely filled my glass measuring cup with water and dropped ice cubes in to create my ice water.

I used a pastry blender to mix my ingredients but balked at tossing it with a fork after adding the ice water. In the past, I have tried using my favorite wooden spoon to blend in water with disastrous results. I always use my pastry blender. Judging from A’s comments after tasting the crust, perhaps I should have used a fork. I also skipped the "smearing" step. I couldn’t see the point.

Not surprisingly, the toughest part was trying to roll out chilled pastry. I couldn’t find my heavy maple rolling pin so I had to use my lighter everyday rolling pin. I wasn’t able to roll the pastry as evenly or as thinly I wanted. Big disappointment.

Something I should have remembered about pastry dough using butter is that it browns/burns more easily than pastry dough using shortening. I should have left my aluminum foil edging on longer than I usually do. I wasn’t happy with how brown the edges became.

As for the big taste test, I was happy with it because it tasted much less flour-y and dough-y than my usual Betty Crocker recipe. A had a different take on it. She pointed out that it was tough. There are two things that can make a crust tough: too much flour and too much handling. I think that I was guilty of both.

A just got a new silicone mat that she is raving about. I am still using my old fashioned pastry cloth to roll my pastry. I have to use a lot of flour to keep my pie crusts from sticking to it and my rolling pin. I’m definitely going to take A’s advice and invest in some new technology.

And now I understand the "smearing" step. In my zeal to mix the water and dry ingredients, I probably went overboard with the pastry cutter. If I had tossed it with a fork and then smeared the result on the counter (or a new-fangled silicone mat), I could have mixed the ingredients just as effectively but with a lot less handling.

I’m going to try this recipe again but follow the directions to the letter. If the result is still not great, I have plenty of time to find a new crust recipe for next year’s apple pie baking contest!

Verdict: Needs a do-over

Piecrust(Source: The Silver Palate Cookbook)

2 ½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons granulated sugar
1 teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons (1 stick) sweet butter, chilled
6 tablespoons vegetable shortening, chilled
5 to 6 tablespoons ice water, as needed

Sift flour, sugar and salt into a mixing bowl. Add chilled butter and shortening. Working quickly and using your fingertips or a pastry blender, rub or cut fat into dry ingredients until the mixture resembles coarse meal.

Sprinkle on ice water, 2 to 3 tablespoons at a time, and toss with a fork. Turn dough out onto your work surface, and, using the heel of your hand, smear dough away from you, about ¼ cups at a time. Scrape it up into a ball and wrap in wax paper. Chill in refrigerator for 2 hours.

Roll dough out to ¼-inch thickness on a floured work surface. Line a 9-inch pie plate with half of the dough. Crimp edges for a single-crust pie.

For prebaking, line dough in the pie plate with foil and fill with beans or rice. Bake in a 425°F oven for 8 minutes, then remove beans and lining. Prick bottom of dough with a fork and return pie plate to oven to 10 to 13 minutes longer, or until crust is golden brown.

Makes one 9-inch double crust, or two 9-inch single crusts.

Orange-Scented Bittersweet Chocolate Cake

2010-09-09T20:59:00.002-04:00

Obviously dessert for the Valentine dinner had to involve chocolate. That was a given. And the theme was “pairings”, so it had to be chocolate-something. I considered chocolate-raspberry, but raspberries aren’t in season now, so I decided on chocolate-orange instead. This recipe sounded good, but not difficult to put together. Frankly, after the Buche de Noel, I wanted something simple. (The original recipe includes a blood orange compote served on the side, but I skipped that.)

The ingredients don’t require comment, except for the chocolate. The recipe specifically states that the chocolate should not exceed 61% cacao. After perusing the available options at the grocery, I decided to go all out and get the Ghirardelli 60% cacao. Unfortunately, I had written on my shopping list the one pound of chocolate required for the cake, but forgot to add to that the additional 6 oz needed for the glaze. Realizing this on the morning of the dinner, I opted to make the glaze out of ordinary chocolate chips. Oh, and light rather than dark corn syrup. I don’t use corn syrup very often as it is, and really can’t see keeping two bottles of the stuff.

This recipe goes together really easily. You don’t even need a mixer, just a couple bowls and a spoon or whisk. Also you can just melt the chocolate/butter mixture in the microwave.

The recipe calls for a 10” cake pan with 2” high sides. I just used my 9” springform pan. You do want high sides because this recipe makes quite a bit; my pan was full. I’m wondering whether a 10” pan may be essential in this case. I did bake it until the tester came out with “moist crumbs attached”, which turned out to be over an hour (although I have doubts about my oven’s thermostat). But the cake was dry on the outer edges and maybe a little bit underdone in the middle. Which is not entirely a bad thing, because the middle was moist and fudgy.

I’m not sure why the recipe suggests applying the glaze only in the center. I would apply it all over, like a frosting.

The flavor was absolutely out of this world. It totally blew me away. It also blew away my coworkers, when I took the leftovers in the next week. Cut the pieces small, because it is heavy and rich. Very chocolatey without being too sweet. It also freezes beautifully. I don’t see anything wrong with making the glaze from regular semisweet chocolate chips. Whether the cake itself would be as good made with regular chocolate chips, I don’t know. I may have to do some research on this point…

Verdict: Yum! This one's a keeper!

Orange-Scented Bittersweet Chocolate Cake
(source: Epicurious.com)

Cake:

2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 pound bittersweet chocolate (do not exceed 61% cacao), chopped
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 cup (packed) golden brown sugar
1 tablespoon Grand Marnier or other orange-flavored liqueur
2 teaspoons finely grated orange peel
4 large eggs
3/4 cup sour cream

Glaze:

6 ounces bittersweet chocolate (do not exceed 61% cacao), chopped
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces
2 tablespoons dark corn syrup

For cake:
Position rack in center of oven and preheat to 325°F. Lightly butter 10-inch-diameter cake pan with 2-inch-high sides. Line bottom of pan with parchment paper; butter parchment.

Whisk flour, baking powder, and salt in medium bowl to blend. Combine chocolate and butter in large metal bowl. Set bowl over saucepan of simmering water; stir until chocolate-butter mixture is melted and smooth. Remove bowl from over water; add both sugars, orange liqueur, and orange peel and whisk until blended (mixture will look grainy). Add eggs, 2 at a time, and whisk until just blended after each addition. Whisk in sour cream. Add flour mixture and stir in with rubber spatula just until incorporated. Transfer batter to prepared pan; spread evenly.

Bake cake until tester inserted into center comes out with moist crumbs attached, about 50 minutes. Cool cake in pan on rack 30 minutes. Run small knife around sides of cake to loosen. Invert cake onto rack; peel off parchment. Cool cake completely (center may sink slightly).

For glaze:
Combine chocolate and butter in small metal bowl. Set bowl over saucepan of simmering water; stir until chocolate-butter mixture is melted and smooth. Whisk in corn syrup. Cool glaze until barely warm but still pourable, about 10 minutes.

Pour glaze onto center of cake. Using small offset spatula, spread glaze over top of cake, leaving 1/2-inch plain border around top edge. Let stand at room temperature until glaze sets, about 2 hours. DO AHEAD: Can be made 2 days ahead. Cover with cake dome and store at room temperature.

Recycle: liqueur bottle, sour cream carton, corn syrup bottle

Compost: eggshells

Chicken Mole

2010-04-17T23:30:00.000-04:00

Why in the world would I want to make a recipe from a book that was the most poorly written tome I have ever had the misfortune to read? I was asking myself this question as I was chopping onions and peppers, trying not to burn myself with the jalapeño. I decided that it was because the recipe itself was taken from a website not authored by the woman who “wrote” the book I found it in.

Shopping for this recipe was fun. Since it wasn’t specified in the recipe, I went with diced tomatoes rather than whole ones because everything else is diced. There were no chipotle chilis (a dried pepper) in my market nor was there anything labeled “green chili pepper” so I bought a jalapeño pepper. I knew that it was green, it was a pepper and it packed enough heat that one was plenty. I should have inventoried my spice cabinet. Turns out I had almost no chili powder so I substituted Mexican style chili powder.

This recipe smelled terrific while it was simmering. I love dishes, by the way, that don’t need a lot of fussing over while they are cooking. It also thickened up surprisingly quickly after the addition of the cocoa and sugar.

The first night, all I tasted was heat. All spice, no depth. I thought by the second night when the flavors had had a chance to meld and mellow it would be better. Instead, it was just muddy. One substitution I shouldn’t have made was boneless breasts for the boneless thighs. Normally, I am not a fan of dark meat but in this case the more flavorful dark meat would have combined better with the spicy sauce.

This was my first taste of a mole sauce. I wasn’t impressed but it may be due more to this recipe in particular. I am reserving judgment on mole sauces for now. But I won’t be making this recipe again.

Verdict: Not bad, but I won’t be making this again.

Chicken Mole(source: www.sweatnspice.com)

1 (14 ounce) can tomatoes
8 skinned & boned chickn thighs
1 chipotle chile, or to taste
2 teaspoons cumin
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 green pepper, chopped fine
2 tablespoons chili powder
1 green chili pepper, chopped
1 onion, chopped fine
½ cup water
3 tablespoons cocoa
1 tablespoon sugar

Place all ingredients except cocoa and sugar in a large pot. Cover and simmer until chicken si very tender (about an hour). Remove chicken from pot. Add cocoa and sugar. Simmer sauce until thick. Return chicken to sauce and heat 5 to 10 minutes to blend flavors. Serve over rice.

Recycle: tomtato can, spice bottles

Compost: garlic skins, onion skins, pepper seeds and membranes

Blondies

2010-04-05T13:50:00.000-04:00

Chocoholic that I am, I have a strange paritality for Blondies. I’ve only tasted commercially prepared ones. My search for a decent recipe so that I can whip up my own whenever the mood strikes, has so far proved fruitless.

This past weekend during my search for a new cake/cookie/brownie recipe to try, I ran across a cookbook that I wasn’t aware that I owned, Our Best Recipes by Better Homes and Gardens. Published in 2003, it features recipes from their past as well as contemporary offerings. One of those recipes is for Blondies.

It was love at first sight. I had all of the ingredients on hand except the chocolate chips. And it can be made in one bowl with only a wooden spoon for mixing. I melted, stirred, spread and sprinkled, then popped it in the oven with much anticipation. One direction I didn’t follow which I should have was to cut them while warm. I waited until the following day when they were rock hard from spending the night in the fridge. Cue the pizza cutter.

My anticipation was for naught. When I finally tasted them the following day when any home-baked good is at its most flavorful, these were strangely tasteless. My search for a Blondie recipe continues.

Verdict: What were they thinking???

Blondies(source: Our Best Recipes by Better Homes and Gardens)

2 cups packed brown sugar
⅔ cup butter
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. baking soda
1 cup semisweet chocolate pieces (6 oz.)
1 cup chopped nuts

Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease a 13x9x2-inch baking pan; set aside. In a medium saucepan, combine brown sugar and butter; heat and stir over medium heat until butter melts and mixture is smooth. Cool slightly. Using a wooden spoon, stir in eggs, one at a time; stir in vanilla. Stir in flour, baking powder, and baking soda.

Spread batter in prepared baking pan. Sprinkle with chocolate pieces and nuts. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted near center comes out clean (avoid chocolate pieces). Cool slightly on a wire rack. Cut into bars while warm.

Makes 36 bars.

Recycle: vanilla bottle

Compost: eggshells

Lemon-Ginger Chicken

2010-04-04T21:05:00.002-04:00

I was trying to come up with a main dish for our “Pairings” dinner when one day “Lemon-Ginger Chicken” popped into my head. I have no idea where that came from. I don’t believe I’ve ever made, or even eaten, it before. But it sounded good. Maybe because it was winter and spicier foods were more appealing just then.

As with the Ginger Carrot soup, I had a little trouble finding a recipe in which lemon and ginger were the only main flavor components, but finally found one on the Betty Crocker website. In honor of the occasion, I decided to buy real gingerroot instead of just using the powdered stuff. I’d never used it before, and was pleasantly surprised at the lemony fragrance that arose as I was grating it. Ah, now I see why this is paired with lemon….this pair has a lot in common! Hmmm, I thought, I wonder if this stuff tastes lemony too….YYAAAHHH!!! I’d momentarily forgotten about things like ginger beer…Okay, so this couple has some differences too…

Both the chicken and the sauce proved to be very quick and easy to put together. Especially when you don’t bother to flatten the chicken breasts first. In this case, however, you do need to be sure you cook the chicken long enough that it’s cooked through. Following the suggestions of some of the reviewers at the original website, I doubled the sauce recipe.

The chicken itself proved disappointing. I couldn’t taste the lemon or ginger at all, and I did taste an off-flavor that I thought might have come from the oil. The sauce was good, though.

A day or two later, when I had the leftovers for lunch, the off-flavor was gone, but I still couldn’t taste the lemon or ginger on the chicken itself. Maybe I should have applied the breading more heavily; there was a fair amount of it left over. The sauce had so much cornstarch in it that it had thickened to about the consistency of aspic, even after reheating, and the lemon flavor in it now seemed too strong. Also, there was really more of it than was necessary.

Although I think the lemon-ginger combination has serious potential for a good long-term relationship, this particular dish doesn’t show them off to best advantage.

Verdict: What were they thinking?

Lemon-Ginger Chicken
(source: bettycrocker.com)

Chicken
4 boneless skinless chicken breasts (1 1/4 lb)
1/2 cup Original Bisquick® mix
1/4 cup Progresso® plain bread crumbs
1 tablespoon grated lemon peel
1/2 teaspoon grated gingerroot
1/2 cup water
3 tablespoons vegetable oil

Lemon Ginger Sauce
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup water
3 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon grated gingerroot
1 drop yellow food color
Lemon slices, if desired

Between pieces of plastic wrap or waxed paper, place each chicken breast smooth side down; gently pound with flat side of meat mallet or rolling pin until about 1/4 inch thick.

In shallow bowl, mix Bisquick mix, bread crumbs, lemon peel and gingerroot. Pour 1/2 cup water into another shallow bowl. Dip chicken into water, then coat with Bisquick mixture.

In 12-inch nonstick skillet, heat oil over medium heat. Cook chicken in oil 8 to 10 minutes, turning once, until juice of chicken is clear when center of thickest part is cut (170°F).

Meanwhile, in 1-quart saucepan, mix lemon juice, 1/4 cup water, the sugar, cornstarch, gingerroot and food color. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until thickened and bubbly. Pour sauce over chicken. Garnish with lemon slices.

High Altitude (3500-6500 ft): Cook chicken in oil 11 to 13 minutes or until meat thermometer inserted in center of chicken reads 170°F.

Recycle: oil bottle

Compost: rest of lemon

Rice Pilaf with Thyme

2010-04-03T23:24:00.001-04:00

I have a tendency to get into ruts. Whenever I need a starch, I automatically make rice. Just plain old white rice. It’s quick and easy. Much quicker and easier than the mashed potatoes I was raised on. And mashed potatoes are so not good for you. I’ve been experimenting with other ways to make potatoes such as roasting them, but cleaning them and cutting them, and herbing them and finally roasting them takes so much time and effort. It’s much easier to throw 1 ½ cups of rice into 2 cups of water, simmer for 20 minutes, then turn off the heat and let it steam for another ten minutes. As they said in the commercial, “perfect rice every time”.

I need to get out of my rice rut. Since I was making chicken, I decided to go with rice pilaf. My first instinct was to revisit the Wild Basmati Pilaf recipe, making the changes I had planned on. After reviewing the recipe, I decided that it had too many ingredients and too many steps. I had been suffering with “flu-like symptoms” all week and wanted something easy to prepare. Like plain old white rice.

Next I hit the internet. Who knew there were so many variations of rice pilaf? It seems it can be made with every conceivable ingredient and seasoning. I didn’t even know where to start. Fortunately, Martha came to my rescue. She offers a very simple recipe using fresh thyme which I was also using in the chicken recipe.

I think I will have to take A’s advice and buy a timer that can time more than one thing at a time. I had difficulty (because I was so ill) timing both the chicken and the rice. Luckily, the rice was forgiving and I was able to “guesstimate” the cooking time and have it come out right. Better than right. This is an easy and delicious recipe that I’ll be making again and again.

Verdict: Yum!! This one’s a keeper!!

Rice Pilaf with Thyme(source: Martha Stewart.com)

1 tablespoon butter
1 small onion, chopped
Coarse salt and ground pepper
1 ½ cups canned reduced-sodium chicken broth
1 cup long-grain white rice
2 sprigs fresh thyme, or ½ teaspoon dried

In a medium saucepan, melt butter over medium. Add onion; season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until onion is golden, 8 to 9 minutes. Add broth, and bring to a boil. Stir in rice and thyme.

Reduce to a simmer; cover, and cook until rice is just tender, 15 to 17 minutes. Let stand 5 minutes; fluff with a fork.

Serves 4

Recycle: chicken broth can

Compost: onion skins

Roasted Chicken with Garlic-Sherry Sauce

2010-04-02T23:49:00.000-04:00

I try to make it a habit to cook a new main dish recipe and new dessert recipe every week. Since I cook mainly on weekends, that means that my weekend meals are usually not very good. This weekend was a one of those rare weekends when the dinner I cooked turned out to be delicious. I daringly tried both a new main dish recipe and a new side dish recipe (Rice Pilaf with Thyme, both of which were definitely standouts.

This was my first attempt at brining. I ran into two minor snags. Cooling the brine to room temperature took far longer than I anticipated. And I didn’t have any plastic bags larger than one gallon. I resorted to my fallback bags which in this case were scented. My concern was that the scent would permeate the chicken. It didn’t, instead permeating my refrigerator reminding me that I needed to change the box of baking soda.

Normally when making any chicken dish, I use boneless breasts no matter which cut of chicken the recipe calls for. I don’t much care for wings, legs or thighs. In this case, I opted to go with the bone-in breast halves as specified. Big mistake. They were very thick. They cooked, but were rubbery. I prefer my chicken to be cooked to a firmer texture. The advantage to using boneless breasts in a recipe like this is that if they are too thick, they can be pounded thinner to ensure that they cook properly.

I had been sick all week and so rested while the chicken was baking and the rice was boiling. Another big mistake. When the chicken came out of the oven, I realized that I hadn’t sliced the eight cloves of garlic. Which became six large cloves because I had neither the time, the energy nor the patience to slice two more. I was also perplexed by the instruction to “cube” the butter. I’ve melted butter, softened butter, even sliced it into pats, but am clueless as to how one “cubes” butter. I settle for cutting it into large slices which melted quite nicely into the sauce.

Other than the rubbery texture of the chicken, this dish was perfection. The sauce had body without being too heavy. The garlic was there but not obnoxiously so. The sherry added an “exotic” note to the sauce. And the fresh thyme was lighter and yet more flavorful than the dried thyme that I am accustomed to using in recipes.

Verdict: Yum!! This one’s a keeper!!

Roasted Chicken with Garlic-Sherry Sauce(source: Taste of Home)

2 quarts water
½ cup salt
4 bone-in chicken breast halves (12 ounces each)
¾ teaspoon pepper, divided
2 teaspoons canola oil
8 garlic cloves, peeled and thinly sliced
1 cup reduced-sodium chicken broth
½ cup sherry or additional reduced-sodium chicken broth
3 fresh thyme sprigs
¼ cup butter, cubed
1 teaspoon lemon juice

For brine, in a large saucepan, bring water and salt to a boil. Cook and stir until salt is dissolved. Remove from the heat; cool to room temperature.

Place a large heavy-duty resealable plastic bag inside a second large resealable plastic bag; add chicken. Carefully pour cooled brine into bag. Squeeze out as much air as possible; seal bags and turn to coat. Refrigerate for 1-2 hours, turning several times.

Drain and discard brine. Rinse chicken with cold water; pat dry. Sprinkle with ½ teaspoon pepper. In a large ovenproof skillet, brown chicken in oil over medium heat.

Bake, uncovered, at 400°F for 20-25 minutes or until a meat thermometer reads 170°F. Remove chicken and keep warm. Drain drippings, reserving 1 tablespoon.

In the drippings, sauté garlic for 1 minute. Ad the broth, sherry or additional broth and thyme. Bring to a boil; cook until liquid is reduced to 1 cup. Discard thyme. Stir in the butter, lemon juice and remaining pepper. Serve with chicken.

Yield: 4 servings

Recycle: canola oil bottle, chicken broth can, sherry bottle, lemon juice bottle

Compost: garlic skins

Outrageous Carrot Cake

2010-03-27T22:59:00.000-04:00

Who can resist a recipe that is billed as “outrageous”? I certainly can’t. I’ve been making the same carrot cake recipe for years. It’s from the Soft As Silk cake flour box. It tastes alright, but I would prefer something denser and moister. It was also my first taste of cream cheese frosting. Who knew it was that good?

At first glance, the two recipes are identical. A closer look revealed some differences. The outrageous recipe uses canola oil. The SAS recipe uses mayo. The outrageous recipe uses only cinnamon. The SAS recipe uses cinnamon plus allspice or ginger. The outrageous recipe includes carrots, pineapple, walnuts and coconut. The SAS recipe has no coconut. Although it wasn’t what I was looking for, I was intrigued enough to give it a whirl.

Looking over the baking directions, I was struck by the fact that you must bake the layers on different racks and then turn and reverse them. I understand that this is necessary to ensure that they bake evenly, but I was taught that you should open the oven door as little as possible to keep the temperature even. Uneven temperatures will prevent your cakes from baking properly.

I elected to bake all three layers on the same rack. When I checked them after the recommended 25 minutes, I discovered that the edges were rapidly overbaking and pulled away from the sides of the pans. 15 minutes of cooling in the pans later, I discovered that the layers were very greasy when I removed them from the pans. I’m not sure if it was because I elected to grease the pans instead of spraying them with nonstick cooking spray (banned in my kitchen) or because the recipe uses canola oil instead of my usual mayo.

The taste was too cinnamon-y and I intensely disliked the texture of the coconut in the cake. Add that to the greasiness of the cake and I see no reason to call this recipe “outrageous”. The frosting was really good, though.

Verdict: What were they thinking???

Outrageous Carrot Cake(source: Cooking Club of America)

Cake
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
6 eggs
2 ½ cups sugar
1 ½ cups canola oil
2 ½ cups finely grated carrots (about 6 carrots)
2 (8-oz.) cans crushed pineapple in juice, well-drained
1 cup shredded sweetened coconut
1 cup finely chopped walnuts

Frosting
12 oz. cream cheese, softened
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
6 cups powdered sugar
1 ½ cups finely chopped walnuts, if desired

Evenly space 2 baking racks in oven. Heat oven to 350°F. Spray bottom and sides of 3 (9x2-inch) round cake pans with nonstick cooking spray. Line bottoms with parchment paper; spray parchment with nonstick cooking spray.

Sift flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon into medium bowl.

In large bowl, beat eggs and sugar at medium speed 1 to 3 minutes or until thickened and slightly lighter in color. Beat in oil at low speed. Stir in flour mixture until blended. Stir in carrots, pineapple, coconut and 1 cup walnuts until blended. Divide batter evenly among pans. Bake 25 minutes; turn and reverse cake pans. Bake an additional 10 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean and cake pulls slightly away from sides of pan. Cool in pans on wire rack 15 minutes. Invert onto wire rack; remove parchment. Cool completely.

To make frosting, beat cream cheese and butter in large bowl at medium speed 3 minutes or until blended and smooth. Beat in vanilla. Add powdered sugar; beat at low speed 1 minute or until blended and smooth.

Place 1 cake layer on serving platter or cardboard round; spread with 1 cup frosting. Repeat. Top with remaining cake layer; spread top and sides with thin layer of frosting. Coat sides with another smooth layer of frosting; spread remaining frosting on top. Press 1 ½ cups walnus onto sides of cake. Refrigerate leftovers.

Cake can be made up to 2 days ahead and refrigerated, or 3 weeks ahead and frozen. To freeze, place cake in freezer until frosting is firm; wrap in plastic wrap, then heavy-duty foil. To defrost, place in refrigerator overnight; remove wrapping. Serve at room temperature.

20 servings

Recycle: canola oil bottle, pineapple cans, vanilla extract bottle

Compost: egg shells, carrot peels

Italian Sausage Meatball Rigatoni with Vodka-Tomato Sauce

2010-03-24T19:25:00.000-04:00

When this recipe was delivered to my inbox, I bookmarked it immediately. I happen to have a bottle of vodka left over from my cocktail experiments. I was also intrigued by meatballs that are baked in the oven rather than fried on top of the stove.

White bread is not something that I normally have on hand so I used plain old bread crumbs from a can which I did soak in the milk for 5 minutes. Grating onions was an adventure. I haven’t cried that much since our first cat died. In the future, I may take a cue from a French movie I once saw where one of the characters was slicing onions while wearing a snorkel and mask. I wonder if you can rent snorkels like you can rent scuba gear? Unlike most of my experiences, this recipe did, in fact, yield 24 meatballs but they seemed awfully large to be fully cooked after 15 minutes in the oven.

Making the sauce was simple although I question whether the 15 minute reduction indeed reduced the vodka or merely boiled away the alcohol. The crushed red pepper and black pepper gave it a nice kick. And I really liked it over the rigatoni rather than the more usual spaghetti. The meatballs were a disappointment. They were nowhere near cooked through after 15 minutes. My guess is that they needed at least twice that much time.

Verdict: Not bad, but I don’t think I’ll be making this again

Italian Sausage Meatball Rigatoni with Vodka-Tomato Sauce(source: Cooking Club of America)

½ cup fresh white bread crumbs
½ cup milk
¾ lb. bulk mild Italian sausage
¾ lb. ground beef (85% lean)
1 medium onion, coarsely grated
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese, divided
¼ cup chopped fresh parsley
1 teaspoon salt, divided
½ teaspoon crushed red pepper, divided
12 oz. rigatoni
¼ cup butter
2 large garlic cloves, minced
⅔ cup vodka or chicken broth
1 cup canned crushed tomatoes
¾ cup whipping cream
¼ teaspoon black pepper

Heat oven to 425°F. Combine bread crumbs and milk in large bowl; let stand 5 minutes. Mix in sausage, ground beef, onion, ½ cup of the cheese, parsley, ½ teaspoon of the salt and ¼ teaspoon of the crushed red pepper until well-blended. Shape into 24 (1 3/4-inch) balls. Place on rimmed baking sheet. Bake 10 to 15 minutes or until cooked through and no longer pink in center. Cover loosely with foil.

Cook rigatoni in large pot of boiling salted water according to package directions; drain.

Meanwhile, melt butter in medium saucepan over medium-low heat. Cook garlic 30 seconds or until fragrant. Stir in vodka; reduce until slightly thickened, about 5 minutes. Add tomatoes, cream, remaining ½ teaspoon salt, remaining ¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper and black pepper; bring to a boil. Simmer 5 minutes. Spoon sauce over rigatoni; sprinkle with remaining ½ cup cheese. Top with meatballs.

Recycle: milk bottle, vodka bottle, tomato can

Compost: onion skin, parsley stems, garlic skins

Carrot with Ginger Soup

2010-03-12T21:39:00.004-05:00

I still have some carrots from this year’s (or, more accurately, last year’s) garden, and I thought a good use for them would be to make a carrot soup for the Valentine’s dinner. Since the theme this year was “pairings”, we came up with ginger-carrot soup. But at first I had trouble finding a recipe. There are quite a few out there, but they all seemed to have one of two problems. Either they included so many other ingredients that they were actually “ginger-carrot-and-fifteen-other-things soup” and thus didn’t really fit the theme, or they had just a few ingredients but the reviews indicated that they were “bland”, “boring”, etc. Finally I found a recipe that contained few other flavor components, and that got good reviews.

As a bonus, this recipe contains detailed instructions about pureeing the soup. Follow these and you should avoid the type of disaster OldRoses suffered last Thanksgiving.

The ingredients were pretty much as in the recipe, except that I used light cream instead of whipping cream; in a recipe like this, I doubt many people would notice the difference. I also sprang for real ginger, since I also needed it for the chicken dish (more on that here).

The recipe calls for 2 pounds of carrots. I wasn’t sure I had enough of my home-grown ones, so I bought a one-pound bag and used a pound of my own. Now, I should explain that the ones I grew are a purple variety. So when the carrots were simmered, the purple color leached out into the broth. When it was all pureed (without accident, I might add - I used a blender rather than a food processor), the whole thing took on a mauve color, which was perfect for Valentine’s Day. Oh, and the garnish in the picture is a particularly pretty carrot slice that I reserved for this purpose.

When I first tasted this soup, I was disappointed. The chicken broth flavor came out more strongly than I had expected, and I didn’t detect the ginger at all. But, by a day or two later, things had improved. The chicken broth flavor had receded and a lemony flavor from the ginger was present now. If you didn’t know there was ginger in it, you might think it was lemon instead, yet there’s the hint of a bite to it. I’m wondering whether the ginger level should be upped just a bit…

Verdict: Not bad...I might make this one again.

Ginger Carrot Soup
(source: foodnetwork.com)

2 tablespoons sweet cream butter
2 onions, peeled and chopped
6 cups chicken broth
2 pounds carrots, peeled and sliced
2 tablespoons grated fresh ginger
1 cup whipping cream
Salt and white pepper
Sour cream
Parsley sprigs, for garnish

In a 6-quart pan, over medium high heat, add butter and onions and cook, stirring often, until onions are limp. Add broth, carrots, and ginger. Cover and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until carrots are tender when pierced.

Remove from heat and transfer to a blender. Don't fill the blender more than half way, do it in batches if you have to. Cover the blender and then hold a kitchen towel over the top of the blender*. Be careful when blending hot liquids as the mixture can spurt out of the blender. Pulse the blender to start it and then puree until smooth. Return to the pan and add cream, stir over high heat until hot. For a smoother flavor bring soup to a boil, add salt and pepper, to taste.

Ladle into bowls and garnish with dollop sour cream and parsley sprigs.

*When blending hot liquids: Remove liquid from the heat and allow to cool for at least 5 minutes. Transfer liquid to a blender or food processor and fill it no more than halfway. If using a blender, release one corner of the lid. This prevents the vacuum effect that creates heat explosions. Place a towel over the top of the machine, pulse a few times then process on high speed until smooth.

Recycle: broth can, sour cream tub

Compost: veggie peelings/trimmings

Tuscan Rabbit Ragù

2010-03-10T19:19:00.000-05:00

No, I haven’t lost my mind and eaten the Easter Bunny. I’m still caught up in recipes from the New York Times. They had an article on slaughtering and cooking rabbit. I kind of enjoyed the image of urban hipsters attending a workshop to learn how to kill and butcher animals. One attendee even brought her own knives.

Naturally, the article was followed by recipes, of which this one sounded really good. Except for the rabbit, of course. I decided to try it using chicken instead.

I was intrigued by the use of red onion, which tends to be sweeter than yellow onions, and by the lack of garlic. Seems like most everything I cook has garlic in it. I was disappointed when I couldn’t find pancetta or prosciutto at my local grocery store and had to settle for bacon. Ditto the Parmesan cheese rind. I’m still scratching my head over the “nonreactive” pot. I’ve never seen a pot that reacts. Reacts to what? How? Must be an urban hipster thing.

Olive oil that “shimmers”. Interesting concept. I didn’t see any “shimmering”, but it did get hot. Cooking veggies in oil for 25 minutes is okay. Not so much the bacon. Bacon cooked in oil gets soft and greasy. I think I would have preferred cooking the bacon first until crispy, removing it and then adding the olive oil and veggies, adding the bacon back in with the rabbit/chicken.

After simmering for two hours, I was pretty hungry. So hungry, in fact, that I forgot to add the thyme and rosemary at the end. Served over my usual rice (what I had in the house), it was pretty good. Then I remembered the thyme and rosemary and added it for the following night when it was even better. I’ll definitely be making this again. With chicken.

Verdict: Yum!! This one’s a keeper!!

Tuscan Rabbit Ragù(source: NYT.com)

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 red onion, finely chopped
1 carrot, peeled and finely chopped
1 stalk celery, finely chopped
¼ pound pancetta, bacon or prosciutto, diced
One 3- to 4-pound rabbit, cut into 6 or 8 pieces
1 cup white wine
A Parmesan cheese rind, optional
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2 bay leaves
2 to 3 cups chicken stock or water
Salt
Black pepper
1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh thyme
1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh rosemary.

Place a large, heavy-bottomed, nonreactive pot over medium-low heat. Add olive oil and when it shimmers, add onion, carrot, celery and pancetta. Sauté, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are soft and caramelized (about 25 minutes).

Raise heat to medium-high. Add rabbit. Brown lightly on all sides. Add wine and stir, scraping bottom of pan. Add cheese rind if using, tomato paste, bay leaves and stock or water. Stir well, and season with salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a boil, stir, and reduce heat to low.
Simmer, lid slightly ajar, until meat is tender and nearly falling off the bone, about 2 hours.

Remove rabbit from sauce. When cool enough to handle, shred rabbit. Return meat to pot. Add thyme and rosemary, and season with salt and pepper. Reheat gently before serving. Ragù may be spooned over warm polenta or tossed with pasta, butter, more fresh herbs and grated Parmesan or pecorino Toscano.

Yield: About 4 cups, or 4 to 6 servings.

Recycle: olive oil bottle, wine bottle, tomato paste can

Compost: onion skins, carrot peels, celery leaves, bay leaves

Peanut Butter Cookies

2010-03-07T23:14:00.000-05:00

I have totally outdone myself. Always on the lookout for interesting recipes and taking great pride in finding them in the most unlikely places, I found a delicious recipe for peanut butter cookies on a blog written by a poet on Writing.com. Got that? Blog? Poet? Writing site? Nothing to do with cooking except that poets cook too and apparently blog about it.

I used to make peanut butter cookies. This recipe intrigued me because it is made with creamy peanut butter whereas I had always used chunky peanut butter because that is what I had in the house. And it uses shortening instead of the butter I was accustomed to using. The big question was whether or not these cookies would be as rich and peanut-y as the cookies I used to make.

I’m not sure if it is appropriate to discuss why I stopped eating peanut butter and making peanut butter cookies. Being an omnivore and an omnivorous reader, I came across an article many years ago that talked about the amount of rodent droppings and insect pieces that were allowed in the manufacture of peanut butter. After reading that, I was rendered incapable of consuming peanut butter.

I decided that I would attempt to put aside my aversion to peanut butter and try out this recipe. The recipe is originally from the Crisco site. Although it calls specifically for Jiff, the blogger assures us that we can use any brand that we want. She uses a store brand. I bought Jiff because it was on sale. She does insist that only Crisco brand shortening and Gold Medal Flour be used but that’s not a problem for me. I use both. I will share her directions exactly as she wrote them because they are, like her, delightful.

I did make one critical error. I had a bag of Heath Milk Chocolate Toffee Bits in my freezer that were just crying out to be used. I was wavering between the peanut butter cookies and whatever cookie recipe was on the Heath bits envelope when I discovered that the recipe was in fact, a peanut butter cookie recipe that was nearly identical to this recipe. Problem solved! Or so I thought. Turns out that the Heath Milk Chocolate Toffee Bits added nothing to the cookies.

My initial question was answered in the affirmative. Not only were these cookies as rich and peanut-y as the recipe I used to make, but because they are made with creamy peanut butter, they taste a lot like Reese’s Peanut Butter cups. But without the chocolate. So you know what I’m going to do next time I make them, right? Add milk chocolate chips to them, of course.

Verdict: Needs a do-over

Peanut Butter Cookies(source: Crisco.com)

¾ cup creamy peanut butter
½ cup shortening
1 ¼ cups firmly packed light brown sugar
3 tablespoons milk
1 tablespoon vanilla
1 egg
1 ¾ cups flour
¾ teaspoon salt
¾ teaspoon baking soda

Heat oven to 375°F.

Combine peanut butter, shortening, light brown sugar, milk and vanilla in mixer bowl. Beat at medium speed of electric mixer until blended. Add egg. Beat just until blended.

Combine flour, salt, and baking soda. Add to creamed mixture at low speed. Mix just until blended.

Drop by heaping teaspoonfuls 2 inches apart onto ungreased Air-Bake cookie sheet. Flatten slightly in crisscross pattern with tines of fork.

Bake one baking sheet at a time at 375°F. Set timer for 7-8 minutes. Bake until set and just beginning to brown. Underdone is better than overdone – experiment on the timing to get them the way you like them.

Prepare second cookie sheet to have ready to put in oven when you take the first one out.

Cool first batch two minutes on baking sheet.

While cookies are cooling, put second batch in oven. Set timer.

Place sheets of foil on counter top or table. Remove cookies with pancake turner to foil to cool completely. Keep a paper towel handy to clean off pancake turner when it gets cookie “residue” on it. You need a good clean turner to move the cookies without messing them up.

Rinse off cookie sheet in cool water and dry before putting next batch of cookie dough on it. (This is her tip, not Crisco’s instruction. She says that it gives each batch of cookies the same starting point – clean, cool cookie sheet.)

Prepare cookie sheet to have it ready to put in oven when you take out the second batch.

Eat some of the first cookies. You have to test them to know if they are done to perfection or if you need to adjust the time.

Repeat steps the above steps until all cookies are baked.

Recipe makes about 3 dozen cookies of which you will have eaten at least one per baking cycle, so you will be a few short up final count. Cookies go wonderfully with a freshly brewed cup of Folgers French Roast Coffee – no additives like sweetener or creamer, natural or artificial – drink it stout and black.

To make Heath Bits Peanut Butter Cookies, reduce flour to 1 ½ cups and add 1 cup toffee bits. Use remaining 1/3 cup toffee bits (from 8-oz pkg) for topping, sprinkling on each cookie before putting in oven.

Recycle: peanut butter jar, milk jug, vanilla bottle

Compost: egg shell

Baked Frittata with Green Peppers and Yogurt

2010-03-03T19:01:00.000-05:00

I saw this recipe while I was perusing the New York Times. Yes, I know, NYT recipes never work out for me but this one was irresistible. It was described as “…an Iranian-style omelet.” I saw “Iranian” and had to try it. I’ve never eaten Iranian food. I also had no idea what a frittata was.

I took one look at the price of saffron in my local grocery store and decided that it wasn’t really necessary. Probably only used for coloration. Although I would have preferred chives (and I think they would have added more flavor),I bought scallions because there were no chives available. I bought two medium green peppers, as directed, and ended up with so much diced green pepper that I found myself wondering why the option of using large ones was even offered.

Heating a casserole dish before using it was definitely novel. I don’t know what I did differently, but this recipe came out perfectly. I was disappointed with the taste, or rather the lack of taste. The yogurt gave it an interesting texture and a slightly different flavor. But on the whole, this dish is rather bland. Very disappointing.

Verdict: Not bad, but I won’t be making this again.

Baked Frittata with Green Peppers and Yogurt(source: NYT.com)

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 medium to large green bell peppers, seeded and diced
2 garlic cloves, pureed in a mortar with a pinch of salt
Salt to taste
6 large or extra-large eggs
¼ teaspoon freshly ground pepper
⅛ teaspoon powdered saffron, or a pinch of saffron threads dissolved or soaked in 1 tablespoon hot water
1 teaspoon all-purpose flour
¾ cup drained yogurt
½ cup chopped fresh chives or finely chopped scallion

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil in a large, heavy skillet and add the peppers. Cook, stirring often, until tender, about eight minutes. Add the garlic and salt to taste, and cook, stirring until the garlic is fragrant, 30 seconds to a minute. Remove from the heat.

Place the remaining tablespoon of oil in a 2-quart casserole or a 9-inch cast iron skillet, brush the sides of the pan with the oil and place it in the oven. Meanwhile, beat the eggs in a large bowl and season with salt. Add the pepper, saffron water, flour and yogurt, and whisk together. Stir in the cooked peppers and the chives or scallions.

Remove the hot baking dish from the oven, brush the sides with the hot oil and pour in the egg mixture, scraping every last bit into the an with a spatula. Bake 30 to 35 minutes until puffed and lightly colored on the top. Remove from the heat, and allow to sellte for 10 miutes before serving. Serve hot, warm or at room temperature.

Serves six to eight.

You can make this dish several hours before serving.

Recycle: olive oil bottle, yogurt container

Compost: pepper seeds and membranes, garlic skins, egg shells

One Egg Cake

2010-02-28T23:01:00.000-05:00

While searching for something new and different to bake, I started pulling all of my cookbooks off the shelf, including The 1896 Boston Cooking-School Cook Book, the first edition of Fannie Farmer’s classic cookbook. I’ve often skimmed through it because the recipes are fascinating as well as a fascinating look at life over a century ago. I’ve never made any of the recipes, but they are fun to look at. Take for instance the recipe for Mock Turtle Soup. There are no turtles in it. Instead, the first ingredient is “1 calf’s head”, not something one usually sees in the market today.

One recipe did catch my eye. It was entitled "One Egg Cake". Could this possibly be the long lost birthday cake recipe that I have spent decades looking for? It is significantly different from the Betty Crocker Dinette Cake recipe that I have been baking. Betty uses shortening, Fannie uses butter. Betty uses vanilla, Fannie doesn’t. I’ve never made a cake without vanilla, have you? Just for fun, I decided to try the recipe.

If you think baking is an art today, back in Fannie’s day it was practically alchemy. Just getting the temperature correct in the oven was a challenge. There were no gas or electric stoves then. Stoves used coal. Oven thermometers were unreliable in those days. Fannie’s advice on achieving and maintaining the correct oven temperature for baking? "…experience alone has proved the most reliable teacher." My oven is a modern gas one so I turned to Betty for the correct 350°F temperature.

I would be curious to see a selection of pans from Fannie’s era. Nowhere does she discuss cake pans or their sizes. For the One Egg Cake recipe, she specifies a shallow pan. The amounts of the ingredients were similar to the Dinette Cake recipe, so I used my usual square 8x8x2 pan.

There are no instructions in the recipe for beating the batter. That is covered in the introduction to the chapter on cakes along with buttering and filling the pan, and removing the cake from the pan. I followed Betty’s instructions for the Dinette Cake recipe. I have no desire to beat cake batter by hand. I use a Kitchenaid stand mixer.

The batter came together beautifully and the cake baked perfectly. Unfortunately, this was not the long lost recipe. But it was a delicious butter cake and a fun trip through culinary history.

Verdict: Not bad, but I won’t be making this again.

One Egg Cake(source: The 1896 Boston Cooking-School Cook Book)

¼ cup of butter
½ cup sugar
1 egg
½ cup of milk
1 ½ cups flour
2 ½ teaspoons baking powder.

Cream the butter, add sugar gradually, and egg well beaten. Mix and sift flour and baking powder, add alternately with milk to first mixture. Bake thirty minutes in a shallow pan. Spread with Chocolate Frosting.

Recycle: milk jug

Compost: egg shell

Beet Bread

2010-02-26T17:10:00.000-05:00

When planning our menu for Valentine’s Day, A suggested we have bread. I had been thinking about various bread and roll recipes, even surfing the net looking for ideas, but I couldn’t come up with any recipes that reflected our theme of Harmonious Pairings. Banana nut bread? Too mundane nor would it really go well with the lemon and ginger in the rest of our dishes. Poppy seed rolls? I hate those little seeds getting stuck between my teeth. Potato bread or rolls? We were serving potatoes so it would be a duplication.

A threw out the idea of making bread or rolls and tinting the dough red. Whenever an idea gets tossed into my brain, I’m never quite sure what will come out. In this case, I managed to surprise myself. My brain started screaming “beet bread”. I had never heard of beet bread. But it made sense because beets are red (appropriate for Valentine’s Day) and they are a late season veggie that would normally be eaten in the winter. I started surfing to see if beet bread existed and how to make it.

I found several recipes and realized that my brain, in its efforts to come up with something original, had apparently forgotten the terrible experience of the butternut squash. Beets, like winter squash, are dense and hard. By the time I was finished peeling and cutting theminto chunks or grating them, I would be in too much pain to cut up the potatoes for the rosemary potatoes and the pearl onions for the peas and pearl onions. I tossed the beet bread idea back into my brain and told it to come up with something else.

My brain couldn’t let go of the idea of beet bread. Its next suggestion was beet bread using canned beets instead of fresh beets. I went back to the internet and found several recipes for beet bread using canned beets. I chose the simplest of them. I dislike recipes that have too many ingredients and/or too many steps.

Once I started making the recipe, I realized that it lacked some information. When I was purchasing the beets, I automatically reached for the sliced beets instead of the whole beets. But because they are pureed in a blender (I used my food processor without incident) it really doesn’t matter whether you buy whole or sliced.

The recipe also does not specify what size loaf pan should be used. I panicked briefly when I realized that for some strange reason I have an 8” loaf pan and a 10” loaf pan but no standard 9” loaf pan. In the end it didn’t matter because there was so much dough, the 10” pan was appropriate.

The bread portion of the recipe came together easily and baked up perfectly. The glaze was not as easy. I simmered and simmered but it just wouldn’t thicken. Nor did it really add anything the bread once it was poured over it. Without the glaze, the bread was delicious. It reminded me of pumpkin bread, probably because of the pumpkin pie spice. And it didn’t taste anything like beets. I have to confess that I don’t like beets but I do seem to like beet bread.

Verdict: Yum!! This one’s a keeper!!

Beet Bread(source: Recipezaar.com)

1 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
¼ cup vegetable oil
3 eggs
1 (16 ounce) can canned beets, drained (reserve liquid)
3 cups sifted all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 ½ teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1 teaspoon ginger
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon grated orange rind
½ cup brown sugar, firmly packed
¼ cup orange juice, not concentrated

Beat sugar, eggs and oil until light and fluffy. Puree beets in blender until smooth. Beat into egg mixture.

Blend flour, baking powder, pumpkin pie spice, ginger and salt. Fold flour mixture and orange rind into batter, mixing well.

Turn batter into a grease and floured loaf pan.

Bake at 350°F for 1 hour.

Glaze: Combine brown sugar, orange juice, and reserved beet juice in saucepan; simmer over low heat until thickened. Pour over while bread is warm. Serve with cream cheese.

Recycle: vegetable oil bottle, orange juice bottle

Compost: leftover orange rind

Chicken Fajitas

2010-02-24T18:10:00.002-05:00

I often liken myself to a bear. In the winter, I gain weight and hibernate. I am much less active because I don’t like the cold so winter sports like skiing or ice skating hold no allure for me. Instead, I prefer spending time in my kitchen cooking up a storm. Less active + more cooking equals more weight.

When I was younger, my winter layer of fat was cute but it rapidly disappeared in the spring as I spent more time outdoors and less time cooking. Nowadays, it is much harder to lose that extra fat. Last year, I carried it until August. This year I’m trying to be smarter about what I eat during my winter “hibernation”. Fewer hearty stick to your rib meals and more lighter meals.

Chicken fajitas is a dish that I normally make in the summer. It is very light and quick to prepare. The short cooking time is key in the summer due to the lack of air conditioning in my house. Also key is slicing the chicken, pepper and onion into very thin strips so that they can be comfortably rolled in a tortilla.

The origins of this recipe have been lost in the mists of time. But it has stayed in my cookbook because it has withstood the test of time. Simple and delicious.

Verdict: Yum!! This one’s a keeper!!

Chicken Fajitas(source: unknown)

1 ½ lb. chicken breast strips, sliced thinly
1 jar salsa
2 tablespoons lime juice
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 bell pepper, cut into thin strips
1 onion, cut into thin strips
12 soft tacos

Brown chicken over medium-high heat until no longer pink. Stir in salsa, lime juice and Worcestershire sauce.

Add pepper and onion; cook and stir 3 to 4 minutes until vegetables are tender-crisp.

Spoon fajita filling onto tortillas. Top with additional salsa if desired. Roll up to serve.

Makes 12 fajitas

Recycle: salsa jar, Worcestershire sauce bottle

Compost: pepper veins and seeds, onion skins

Brickle Bundt Cake

2010-02-21T23:25:00.000-05:00

I try to bake every weekend, but A’s Orange-scented Bittersweet Chocolate Cake was a hard act to follow. Time to try something completely different. I dived into my collection of toffee bits collection and came up with a Brickle Bundt Cake. I liked that it used sour cream. My experience has been that cakes made with sour cream are very moist. There is nothing worse than a dry cake.

I didn’t use the walnuts as called for in the recipe because I am not fond of nuts in my cakes. But I have to admit that the nuts would have definitely added flavor and texture to the toffee bits.

The batter came out very thick and stiff. I was unable to spoon the batter into the pan in thirds. The best that I could do was to put half in the pan, sprinkle the toffee mixture over it and then add the other half. I sprinkled the remaining toffee mixture over the top and hoped for the best, i.e. that it wouldn’t burn in the oven. Not to worry, the cake batter baked over it.

Another challenge was getting the cake out of the pan. No matter how well you grease and flour a pan, melting sugar is going to fuse to it. The toffee mixture that I so carefully sprinkled in the batter, oozed out of it and stuck like glue, making it next to impossible to get the cake out of the pan in one piece.

The glaze had a weird taste to it. I’m chalking it up to the powdered sugar that I used. It’s leftover from the Christmas cookies and may have picked up some odors in the interim.

When all was said and done, this cake was very bland. Walnuts in the toffee mixture would have given it a little flavor but not enough to make a real difference. This was a huge disappointment.

Verdict: Too bland – I won’t be making this again

Brickle Bundt Cake(source: Hersheys.com )

1 1/3 cups (8-oz. pkg.) toffee bits, divided
1 ¼ cups sugar, divided
¼ cup chopped walnuts
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ cup (1 stick) butter, softened
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
1 container (8 oz.) dairy sour cream
¼ cup (1/2 stick) butter, melted
Powdered Sugar Glaze (recipe follows)

Heat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour 12-cup fluted tube pan or 10-inch tube pan. Set aside ¼ cup toffee bits for topping. Combine remaining toffee bits, ¼ cup sugar, walnuts and cinnamon; set aside.

Beat remaining 1 cup sugar and ½ cup butter in large bowl until fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla; beat well. Stir together four, baking powder, baking soda and salt; gradually add to butter mixture, alternately with sour cream, beating until blended. Beat 3 minutes. Spoon one-third of the batter into prepared pan. Sprinkle with half of toffee mixture. Spoon half of remaining batter into pan. Top with remaining toffee mixture. Spoon remaining batter into pan. Pour melted butter over batter.

Bake 45 to 50 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pan to wire rack. Cool completely.
Prepare glaze; drizzle over cake. Sprinkle remaining ¼ cup toffee bits over top.

12 to 14 servings.

Powdered Sugar Glaze: Combine 1 cup powdered sugar, 1 tablespoon milk and ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract. Add additional milk, 1 teaspoon at a time, until of drizzling consistency.

About ½ cup glaze

Recycle: vanilla extract bottle, sour cream container, milk bottle

Compost: egg shells

Peas and Pearl Onions

2010-02-19T20:17:00.002-05:00

Since the theme of our Valentine’s Day dinner was “Harmonious Pairings”, peas and pearl onions immediately came to mind. It’s a classic pairing and one that I have never made before. Naturally, I turned to Marth Stewart who featured a recipe made with red pearl onions. Perfect for Valentine’s Day! I love Martha’s recipes. They almost always work, as well as tasting delicious. But I’m discovering that there is a glaring weakness in most of them: directions.

Martha assumes a certain amount of knowledge on her readers’ part, knowledge that I don’t have. I have never taken a cooking class other than two brief semesters in junior high school*. That’s why I have always loved Betty Crocker. Her cookbooks include tutorials with photos.** Martha does have video tutorials on her website but they are usually illustrating advanced techniques.

I am in need of more basic stuff. Like a paragraph on peas. She calls for frozen petite green peas. There were none in my grocer's frozen food case. There were peas and baby peas. Recalling my high school French, "petite" means small and baby peas are smaller than fully grown peas, so I went with the baby peas.

Or how about telling me that I should have cut off the tops of the onions before cooking them. Because once they were cooked, I discovered that it was next to impossible to cut the tops off of them. They mooshed, they split apart, they went flying across the counter, they did everything except exhibit a nice clean cut like in the photo on Martha’s website.

I made one glaring error that I can’t blame on Martha. I was supposed to have ½ cup of small fresh mint leaves which sounded delicious. But I was very busy that week and didn’t have time to get to the store where I buy fresh mint. I figured I could substitute. Very. Bad. Idea. My idea was to add a touch of mint flavor using extract. I didn’t have any mint or spearmint extract, only the peppermint extract left over from the Peppermint Bark. I think I overdid it because the dish tasted like candy canes rather than a refreshing vegetable dish. A was polite enough not to complain.

*Middle school hadn’t been invented yet. When I was young, schools were divided into elementary (k-6), junior high (grades 7 & 8) and high school (grades 9 – 12).

**The internet hadn’t been invented yet. There were no videos. Only reels of hilarious home movies, a few of which I fervently pray will never turn up on Youtube. At least not until after I am dead and buried.

Verdict: Needs a do-over with real mint

Peas and Pearl Onions(source: Marthastewart.com)

10 ounces red pearl onions
Coarse salt
½ ounce (1 tablespoon) unsalted butter
2 tablespoons water
2 packages (10 ounces each) frozen petite green peas
½ cup small fresh mint leaves

Cut an X in stem end of each onion. Cook in salted boiling water for 1 to 2 minutes. Drain, and peel.

Heat butter and water in a pan over medium-high heat. Add onions, and cook for 4 minutes. Stir in peas and ¾ teaspoon salt, and cook for 2 minutes. Stir in mint. Serve immediately.

Serves 8 to 10.

Compost: onion skins, mint stems

Spicy Orange Chicken

2010-02-17T23:39:00.000-05:00

Would you believe that it is a few days since Valentine’s Day and already I’m chocolated out? I am in dire need of relief from sweets. A blast of citrus seemed the answer. I’m not normally a big fan of citrus. I have never eaten an entire orange. A few sections full of strings and seeds was enough to turn me off. I drink orange juice, though. Ditto lemons. I don’t care for lemon on my seafood but I love lemonade in the summer.

This recipe made me pause. At first glance, I couldn’t reconcile chicken and orange flavors. But when I took a closer look, I realized that the orange was just a component of the Asian seasonings. I needed an antidote for sweets that was also low fat and low calorie. Spicy Orange Chicken filled the bill nicely.

I love that all of the ingredients are fresh. The recipe calls for two oranges rather than orange extract or orange juice. The spinach is loaded with nutrients like iron and calcium. I have to admit that I skipped the spinach and served this on rice. I’ll also confess to using dried ginger rather than fresh. I didn’t have any fresh ginger on hand.

Lucky for me, oranges were on sale and I bought an entire bag of them. I don’t know if the ones I bought were particularly small or the arthritis in my hands robbed me of the strength to properly squeeze them, but I used two oranges, rather than the one called for in the recipe, to come up with ⅓ cup of juice.

Despite the fact that the directions seem long and complicated, this was a fast and easy dish to prepare. The tangy citrus flavor was exactly what I needed to counterbalance all of the chocolate I have been consuming. I liked this so much, in fact, that I want to try the sauce in a stir fry. I bet it would be excellent.

Verdict: Yum!! This one’s a keeper!!

Spicy Orange Chicken(source: BHG.com)

2 oranges
1 tablespoon cooking oil
2 10-ounce packages baby spinach
1 tablespoon reduced-sodium soy sauce
1 teaspoon honey
1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
½ teaspoon cornstarch
⅛ to ¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper
1 pound skinless, boneless chicken breast strips
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
3 cloves garlic, minced

Remove peel and white membrane from 1 of the oranges. Section orange; set aside. Squeeze enough juice from the remaining orange to measure ⅓ cup; set aside. In a 4-quart Dutch oven, heat 1 teaspoon of the oil over medium heat. Add spinach; cover and cook for 4 to 5 minutes or just until slightly wilted, stirring occasionally. Drain and transfer to 4 serving dishes or a serving platter. Cover and keep warm.

Meanwhile, in a small bowl, combine the ⅓ cup orange juice, the soy sauce, honey, ginger, cornstarch, and crushed red pepper. Set aside.

Sprinkle chicken with salt and black pepper. Wipe out Dutch oven with a paper towel. In Dutch oven, heat the remaining 2 teaspoons oil over medium-high heat. Add garlic; cook and stir for 30 seconds. Add chicken; cook and stir for 2 to 3 minutes or until chicken is no longer pink. Stir orange juice mixture; add to chicken in Dutch oven. Cook and stir until thickened and bubbly. Cook and stir for 1 minute more.

To serve, arrange orange sections on top of spinach. Spoon chicken mixture over oranges and spinach. Makes 4 servings.

Recycle: cooking oil bottle, soy sauce bottle

Compost: orange peels, garlic skins

Roasted New Potatoes

2010-02-15T18:27:00.001-05:00

While researching recipes for our Harmonious Pairings dinner, A came across a blog, Simply Recipes with fantastic food photos. She sent the link to me because food photography is not one of my fortes.

While I was admiring the photography, I also checked out the recipes. This one caught my eye. Potatoes roasted with a little olive oil and some herbs sounded better and healthier than French fries. And because it can be made with either red or yellow potatoes, it was perfect for our Valentine’s Day dinner.

I used red potatoes, of course, and substituted dried rosemary for the fresh which is quite pricey. I haven’t succeeded in keeping a rosemary plant alive year round yet.

This recipe was simple to make and tasted delicious. And it was perfect for our dinner because rosemary and potatoes are a harmonious pairing.

Verdict: Yum!! This one’s a keeper!!

Roasted New Potatoes(source: Simply Recipes)

1 ½ lb of new potatoes (red or yellow skinned), cleaned, cut in half or quarters
2 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1-2 teaspoons fresh rosemary
¼ teaspoon salt
Pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 450°F. Place potatoes in a mixing bowl. Sprinkle on salt and pepper. Add olive oil, rosemary, and garlic. Toss until potatoes are well coated.

Spread potatoes out on a single layer of a baking pan. Roast for 40 minutes, or until potatoes are cooked through and browned. Serve immediately.

Serves 4-6

Recycle: olive oil bottle

Compost: garlic skins

Valentine’s Day at The Wooden Spoon

2010-02-14T19:59:00.006-05:00

Carrot with Ginger Soup

Lemon-Ginger Chicken

Roasted New Potatoes with Rosemary

Peas and Pearl Onions

Beet Bread

Orange-scented Bittersweet Chocolate Cake

We thought that our Honey themed Valentine’s dinner was going to be a hard act to follow but thanks to a colleague of A, BioBabe, who suggested a theme of “Harmonious Pairings” honoring traditional Valentine’s Day couples, we had a wide range of recipes to choose from. For each dish, we looked for a recipe with a “pair” of ingredients. We also made sure to have some holiday red with red potatoes, red pearl onions, beet bread an, thanks to A’s ingenious use of purple carrots, even the soup was a dark pink.

I think it’s safe to say that this year’s dinner easily surpasses our first menu. Thanks BioBabe!

Buche de Noel 2

2010-02-07T15:11:00.003-05:00

When OldRoses suggested we each do a Buche de Noel for the holiday party, I admit I had mixed feelings. I liked the idea of trying to make one, but I know they’re fairly time-consuming to make, and the party was in early December, which is the busiest time of year for me.

Oldroses told me around Thanksgiving that she had selected a coffee-flavored recipe, and suggested I do a plain one. A few days later, I went online to do some recipe research. Google “Buche de Noel” and you’ll get a ton of hits. I came across a recipe for an orange-flavored one. I liked that idea, knowing that orange and chocolate can be a great combination. Eventually I found a recipe I liked and printed it out.

After rereading the recipe for the cake, I turned my attention to the recipe underneath it, for the frosting. It was for a buttercream frosting, the type of buttercream that involves beating egg whites, then adding in a warm sugar syrup and other ingredients. The thing is, the egg whites don’t ever get cooked (unless the sugar syrup is hot enough?). This made me kinda nervous. This Buche was going to be sitting out for a couple of hours at least, and I didn’t want to risk poisoning my fellow gardeners. They might not give me my plot back next year. Besides, this particular recipe called for 7 egg whites and over 3 cups (1 ½ lbs!) of butter. AAAIIIIEEEE! So I went back online and did some more research. But every recipe I looked at used either a buttercream similar to this one, or a whipped cream-based frosting, which to me just didn’t sound right, flavor-wise. Finally I gave up and went to bed in despair.

Sometimes a good night’s sleep helps. The next morning I woke up and thought, hey, what about that chocolate cake frosting? The ganache with a pound of chocolate in it? Yeahhhh…..That recipe does include cream, but at least you heat the cream at the beginning of the process.

Since this is, after all, a French dish, I also consulted my two Julia Child cookbooks. “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” doesn’t include a Buche recipe, but “The French Chef Cookbook”, which is based on her first TV series, does. She also uses a buttercream frosting, but for the cake she suggests two or three possibilities, including an orange-almond sponge cake. This sounded even better to me than the orange cake I’d previously found. Also, she gives very detailed instructions.

Many recipes tell you to roll the cake up and let it cool, then unroll and frost it. Julia, however, recommends frosting the cake at once, because if you’ve overbaked it, you might not be able to unroll it again. This sounded prudent to me. Thus, operations were spread over three evenings.

Day 1: make the frosting, so that the cake could be frosted as soon as it was done. The frosting is actually pretty quick and easy to make. I probably could have made it while the cake was cooling. (This would also have avoided the problem I ran into the next day; see below.) Oh, and I didn’t use fancy high-priced chocolate. I just used ordinary chocolate chips. One pound is 2 2/3 cups. And you don’t really need a whisk; a spoon works just fine. When the frosting was finished, I set it, saucepan and all, in the refrigerator overnight.

Day 2: make and frost the cake.

Julia gives detailed directions for buttering and flouring the pan. I used parchment paper instead of waxed, and cooking spray instead of melted butter. Worked just fine.

The pan, by the way, is supposed to be a jelly roll pan, which is 11 x 17 x 1”. Fortunately, I do own such a pan. Unfortunately, it doesn’t fit inside my oven. My range is so small that when the pan is in the oven, the door is open a couple inches. But the alternative would have been to cart everything over to a friend’s house, and with a fragile cake like this, that didn’t seem like such a good idea. So I made the cake at home, and compensated by rotating the pan halfway through the baking time.

The cake itself went together just fine. I’ve baked sponge cakes before so I wasn’t too worried about that part. Julia uses a large whip to mix the yolks etc.; a mixer also works. I should comment on the almonds, though. I used finely ground ones that a friend sent me from Germany, where they’re a pretty standard grocery item. They’re more finely ground than a nut topping, but not as fine as a flour. It might be possible to duplicate this using a food processor. Julia suggests a blender or meat grinder; I don’t think food processors existed yet when that book was written.

The trouble began once the cake was in the oven. Julia says to be careful not to overbake it, otherwise it’ll crack when you try to roll it. I left it in the oven a minute or two over the 10 suggested, and it did spring back when I touched it, and it was starting to brown around the edges, but it was so soft I’m wondering whether it was a little underdone. I’ve had my doubts lately about my oven’s thermostat, plus the door was a bit open.

Next, Julia says to sprinkle a thin layer of powdered sugar over the top of the cake. She does say that the powdered sugar should be in a sieve, but that part is in the list of ingredients, which in my cookbook is on the page before that part of the cooking instructions. (I’ve rewritten her recipe below to rearrange the several instructions that were in the list of ingredients.) As a result, I didn’t sift the powdered sugar first, and there were hard lumps of sugar that stuck to the surface of the cake. I was able to pick some of them off, but some of them got embedded in the cake, and would have made holes if I’d pulled them out, so I left them. Also, this made the surface of the cake sticky. I’m wondering whether flour would have been better than sugar. I have read somewhere the suggestion to use powdered sugar rather than flour when rolling out cookies because the sugar won’t make them tough like too much flour will; maybe that’s why Julia suggests sugar.

While the cake was cooling, I pulled the saucepan of frosting out of the refrigerator. It was stiff. About the consistency of fudge, in fact. Way too stiff to apply. It was in a metal saucepan, so I couldn’t microwave it. So, I just set the whole pan in the still-warm oven for about 15 minutes, stirring it frequently, until it got soft enough to spread over the top of the cake without tearing it up. Oh, by the way, the frosting recipe as written does make enough to fill and frost the cake. I was concerned about that, so I kept the filling layer rather thin. I should have used about 2/3 of the frosting as filling and saved only about 1/3 to frost the outside.

Rolling up the cake turned out to be not a problem. The cake did crack a bit toward the end, but the frosting covers that. After carefully moving the log to a serving platter covered with wedges of waxed paper, I applied the remaining frosting over the top and sides of the log, then pulled a fork over the frosting, using short strokes. Then I pulled out the wedges of waxed paper. This is a trick Julia mentions elsewhere, and that I’d learned years ago to keep your serving plate clean. Then I put the whole thing in the refrigerator and made myself a cup of tea.

Day 3: decorations. Often you see these decorated with marzipan or meringue mushrooms that look like the ordinary white culinary mushrooms. But those mushrooms don’t grow on trees. Unless it’s a fallen log, maybe, and would you burn a log that was that rotted? No, the mushrooms I’ve seen on trees are shelf fungi. (Also lichens, but I couldn’t think of a way to make those…) It so happens there’s a tree stump just down the street from where I live that has a nice growth of these, so I was able to get a good look at some.

I decided to try making an ivy vine curling up the log. The mention somewhere of marzipan mushrooms gave me the idea of making it out of marzipan. So I bought a can, and colored part of it green by kneading in a couple drops of green food coloring. Rolling a thin rope for the vine was easy; shaping the leaves was harder. I ended up printing out images of ivy leaves, then cutting them out and using them to cut leaves from a thin layer of the green marzipan. (I believe it’s possible to purchase little ivy-leaf-shaped cutters if you really want to get into this.) I then added a few shelf fungi - simple half-circles of plain marzipan.

And the result? The flavors of the chocolate frosting and the orange cake went very well together. The orange was strong enough to balance all that chocolate. But there was a bit of a problem with texture. The frosting, as I noted, is very dense and heavy, especially when cold, but the cake is light and fragile. So when you cut into it, the cake gets smooshed. Maybe that’s why all those other recipes use a whipped cream filling. Duh! So I would recommend finding something lighter for the filling. For frosting the outside, you could use what I used, or something lighter, but you can get away with a strong chocolate flavor. Or give up on the chocolate altogether and let the orange be the predominant flavor.

Verdict: Has potential, but needs a little tweaking.

Bûche de Noël

Orange-Almond Sponge Sheet

(source: The French Chef Cookbook)

3 tbsp butter

¾ cup ground (see below) blanched almonds

3 eggs

rind of 1 orange

2/3 cup granulated sugar

1/3 cup strained orange juice

¼ tsp almond extract

¾ cup sifted plain bleached cake flour

Scant ¼ tsp cream of tartar

Pinch of salt

1 tbsp granulated sugar

Powdered sugar

Melt the butter and let cool to tepid. Reserve 1½ tbsp for the cake. Paint the inside of a jelly roll pan (11” x 17” x 1”) with some of the rest of the melted butter. Line with a 12 x 21-inch piece of waxed paper, letting ends extend beyond edges of pan. Butter the paper, roll flour over it, covering entire inside surface, and knock out excess flour.

Grind the almonds in a blender, or put them through a meat grinder with part of the 2/3 cup sugar.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Separate the eggs; place the yolks in a large mixing bowl, and the whites in a clean, dry smaller bowl. Be sure that there is no speck of yolk in with the whites. Grate the orange rind into the bowl with the yolks. Using a large wire whip, gradually beat in the 2/3 cup sugar. Beat vigorously for a minute or two until the mixture is thick and pale yellow. Beat in the orange juice, then the ground almonds, almond extract, and flour.

Beat the egg whites for a moment at moderate speed; when they begin to foam, add the cream of tartar and salt. Beat at top speed until egg whites form soft peaks, sprinkle in the 1 tbsp sugar and beat a few seconds more until egg whites form stiff peaks when lifted with a spoon or spatula.

Scoop the egg whites over the yolk mixture. Rapidly and delicately fold together, using a rubber spatula; when almost blended, rapidly fold in the melted butter ½ tbsp at a time. Immediately turn the batter into your prepared pan, smoothing over the entire surface. Bang pan briefly on table, to even the mixture, and set in middle level of preheated oven.

Bake for about 10 minutes. Cake is done when barely starting to color, when top is lightly springy or spongy if pressed with fingers, and when the faintest line of separation shows between cake and sides of pan. Do not overcook, or cake will break when rolled; it must be soft and spongy.

Remove from oven and sprinkle top of cake with a 1/16 inch layer of powdered sugar in a sieve. Cover with a sheet of waxed paper. Rinse a towel in cold water, wring it out, and lay over the waxed paper. Turn cake upside down and let cool for 20 minutes.

To unmold, loosen paper lining at one end of pan. Holding paper flat on table, gradually lift off pan, starting at the loose-paper end. Carefully dislodge paper from long sides of cake, then peel it off the top. Trim brown edges all around cake; they will crack when rolled. The cake is now ready for filling, which should be done immediately.

It is usually safest to fill and roll the cake promptly. But if you have not overbaked it, you can risk storing it as follows: sprinkle with powdered sugar, cover with waxed paper, roll up in the damp towel, and refrigerate in a plastic bag. The risk is that the cake may dry out, lose its sponginess, and then be unrollable.

Chocolate Ganache Frosting

(source: www.epicurious.com, from their Double Chocolate Layer Cake recipe)

1 pound fine-quality semisweet chocolate such as Callebaut

1 cup heavy cream

2 tablespoons sugar

2 tablespoons light corn syrup

Finely chop chocolate. In a 1 1/2- to 2-quart saucepan bring cream, sugar, and corn syrup to a boil over moderately low heat, whisking until sugar is dissolved. Remove pan from heat and add chocolate, whisking until chocolate is melted. Cut butter into pieces and add to frosting, whisking until smooth.

Transfer frosting to a bowl and cool, stirring occasionally, until spreadable (depending on chocolate used, it may be necessary to chill frosting to spreadable consistency).

Recycle: almond extract bottle, corn syrup bottle

Compost: eggshells

Toll House Cookies

2010-01-31T23:14:00.001-05:00

Toll House cookies have been on my To-Do list for a couple of weeks. After the Allure of Chocolate talk and refreshments, I needed a palate cleanser. Toll House cookies were the perfect answer. Just for fun, I tried the Pan Cookie variation. Oh, who am I kidding? I was in a hurry and didn’t want to spend an hour baking cookies a dozen at a time.

Toll House cookies have been a part of my life seemingly forever. My mother did almost no baking but one of the very few recipes she made regularly was Toll House cookies. When I was setting up housekeeping in college, one of the first things I bought for my kitchen was cookie sheets so that I could continue baking them. When my daughter was young, I kept her busy on Christmas Eve baking Toll House cookies for Santa Claus. Now I bake them when I need a chocolate injection. They freeze perfectly, so five dozen is not too much for one person.

The Pan Cookie variation was easy. The batter spread easily in the jelly-roll pan. After 20 minutes, it was golden brown and ready to come out of the oven. I forced myself to wait until it had cooled down a bit before using a pizza cutter to make smooth, even bars.

Verdict: Yum!! This one’s a keeper!!

Tollhouse Cookies(source: back of the Nestle semi-sweet morsels package)

2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
¾ cup granulated sugar
¾ cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2 cups (12-oz. pkg.) semi-sweet chocolate morsels
1 cup chopped nuts

Preheat oven to 375°F.

Combine flour, baking soda and salt in small bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract in large mixer bowl until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in morsels and nuts. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.

Bake for 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks.

Makes about 5 dozen cookies

Pan Cookie Variation: Grease 15x10-inch jelly-roll pan. Prepare dough as above. Spread into prepared pan. Bake for 20 t0 25 minutes or until golden brown. Cool in pan on wire rack.

Makes 4 dozen bars.

Recycle: vanilla extract bottle

Compost: eggshells

Thanksgiving Epilogue - Turkey Tetrazzini

2010-01-30T16:05:00.003-05:00

There are recipes out there that call for already cooked poultry as a starting ingredient. I don’t usually make such recipes because I don’t like to take the time to cook the chicken (or whatever) first. It’s true, though, that when you’re making something that starts with raw chicken, you have to cook it as part of the process anyway, so maybe the total preparation time is about the same in the end…so maybe my objections are psychological more than anything else. But at any rate, I don’t usually make recipes that start with precooked poultry.

However, I had a goodly amount of leftover turkey as a result of the Nutty Thanksgiving. I’d been looking through a stack of recipes a few days before and came across one I’d printed out nearly five years ago, for Chicken Tetrazzini. It mentioned that leftover turkey also works. At that point I had, I guesstimated, about a pound of leftover turkey meat, so I cut the recipe in half. I also omitted the truffle butter, and used small pasta shells instead of spaghetti.

I think I’ve made this recipe before, but I don’t remember anything about how it turned out. Maybe that should have told me something.

The recipe calls for you to make an enriched and concentrated stock. It sounds tasty, but I didn’t want to take the time. Besides, I didn’t have any bones. So I just used 1 cup canned chicken broth. Maybe that was the problem. The sauce was thin, and on the whole, I thought this dish needed more flavor. Also I felt there was too much meat in it, but then I may have misjudged how much meat I had. And if you do make this dish, I would suggest cutting the meat up small; 1-inch chunks are too big, in my opinion.

Verdict: Not bad, but I don't think I'll be making it again.

Chicken (or Turkey) Tetrazzini
(source: www.epicurious.com, originally from Gourmet, Nov. 2003)

1 to 1 1/2 pound chicken bones (from 2 cooked chickens), broken into 2- to 3-inch pieces
4 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1 carrot, thinly sliced
1 medium onion, coarsely chopped
2 celery ribs, cut into 1-inch pieces
2 garlic cloves, smashed
5 whole black peppercorns
1 Turkish or 1/2 California bay leaf
2 whole cloves
3/4 stick (6 tablespoons) unsalted butter
3/4 pound mushrooms, thinly sliced
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 cup heavy cream
3 tablespoons medium-dry Sherry
2 tablespoons truffle butter* (optional)
1/2 lb spaghetti
2 pounds chicken meat (from 2 cooked chickens), torn into 1-inch pieces
1 ounce freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano (1/2 cup)

Bring chicken bones, broth, carrot, onion, celery, garlic, peppercorns, bay leaf, and cloves to a boil in a 3- to 4-quart heavy saucepan, then simmer, partially covered, skimming froth, 30 minutes.

Pour stock through a large sieve into a bowl, discarding solids, and return to saucepan. Measure stock: If more than 2 cups, boil until reduced. Keep warm, covered.

Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 350°F. Butter a shallow 3-quart glass or ceramic baking dish.

Heat 3 tablespoons butter in a large heavy skillet over moderately high heat until foam subsides, then sauté mushrooms with 1/4 teaspoon salt and 1/8 teaspoon pepper, stirring, until liquid mushrooms give off is evaporated and mushrooms begin to turn golden, about 8 minutes.

Melt remaining 3 tablespoons butter in a 2- to 3-quart heavy saucepan over low heat, then add flour and cook roux, whisking, 3 minutes. Add warm stock in a fast stream, whisking constantly, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, whisking occasionally, 5 minutes. Add cream, Sherry, remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt, and remaining 1/8 teaspoon pepper and simmer over low heat, whisking occasionally, 10 minutes. Stir in truffle butter (if using).

Cook spaghetti in a large pot of >boiling salted water until al dente, then drain well.

Toss together spaghetti, mushrooms, and half of sauce in a large bowl, then transfer to baking dish. Stir together chicken meat and remaining sauce in same large bowl. Make a depression in spaghetti, then spoon chicken into it and sprinkle dish with cheese.

Bake until sauce is bubbling and top is lightly browned, about 30 minutes. Serve immediately.

*Available at some specialty foods shops and D'Artagnan (800-327-8246).

Recycle: broth cans, spice jars, sherry bottle

Compost: vegetable peelings/trimmings

Pecan Pie

2010-01-27T21:38:00.002-05:00

Pecan pie seemed like the obvious choice for dessert for the Nutty Thanksgiving. Only, I’d never made it before and was a bit uncertain about it. I wasn’t sure what all went into one, and for some reason was expecting it to be somewhat complicated.

After a bit of online research, I discovered that some recipes call for molasses. I liked this because I had had to purchase some to make gingerbread, and I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with the rest, so I was glad to find a way to use some of it up.

This particular recipe caught my attention not only because it uses molasses but also because the writer claimed that it was not overly sweet. I like pecan pie, but it can be too sweet, and I wanted to avoid that.

And the writer was correct. This pie is tasty and not obnoxiously sweet. We both agreed on that. It’s also ridiculously easy. Especially if you use a purchased pie crust (which I didn’t , as is probably obvious from the photo). Literally, a child could make this. You just mix everything and pour it over the pecans, and they magically rise to the top. Why have I never tried this before?

Verdict: Yum! This one's a keeper!

Pecan Pie
(source: Simply Recipes, http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/pecan_pie/

2 eggs, slightly beaten
1 cup light corn syrup
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 Tbsp molasses
2 Tbsp melted butter
2 Tbsp flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/4 cups pecans, coarsely chopped

1 9-inch pie shell, chilled for an hour if freshly made, defrosted for 10 minutes if frozen.

Preheat oven to 375°F. Spread pecans along the bottom of the pie shell. Mix the remaining ingredients and pour over pecans. The pecans will rise to the surface of the pie.

Bake at 375°F for 45-50 minutes until the filling has set. About 20 minutes into the cooking you may want to use a pie crust protector, or tent the edges of the pie crust with aluminum foil to prevent the pie crust edges from burning.

Remove from oven and let cool completely.

Serves 8.

Recycle: corn syrup bottle, molasses jar, vanilla bottle

Compost: eggshells

Mediterranean Herb-Roasted Chicken

2010-01-25T13:10:00.000-05:00

I’ve decided that an important reason why Americans are so fat these days is that every dish served in casual dining establishments as well as every recipe featured on cooking shows and recipe sites is smothered in a cream sauce or melted cheese, or fried. Sometimes it’s all three. I’ve become very conscience of my weight since joining a gym (spandex is NOT your friend) so I’ve been seeking out recipes that are not smothered in cream or cheese, or fried. They are tough to come by.

This recipe caught my eye because it fits my criteria and is my favorite kind of recipe, the one dish meal. It’s similar to the Rosemary Chicken and Vegetables recipe that I’ve made for years but with different seasonings and roasted in the oven rather than prepared on top of the stove.

Anything cooked uncovered in an oven is going to be dry so basting it or marinating it is critical. This recipe offers an “herb mixture” to spoon over the ingredients. I thought that it would be sufficient until I actually made it. It’s more “herb” than “mixture”. And two tablespoons is not nearly enough for the initial roasting time.

I chose not to use whole chicken legs simply because I don’t care for them. I used my usual boneless breasts. They have little or no fat on them. I assume that legs are fattier because there was virtually no “accumulated juices” to baste with. The chicken and vegetables came out of the oven dry, dry, dry. I also have to quibble with the size of the vegetables. Cutting the potatoes into 8 wedges was too large. They didn’t cook through. Likewise, cutting the zucchini into 2” pieces. Too big. I cut mine into ½” pieces and it cooked perfectly.

Now for the good news. The aroma while this was cooking was mouthwatering. And it looked fantastic when it came out of the oven, probably the most colorful dish that I have ever made. Topping it all off, it tasted every bit as good as it smelled.

I want to make this again. The first time, I would try baking rather than roasting. I am curious if merely covering this would seal in the juices, creating a moister dish. If that doesn’t work, I would add chicken broth to the herb mixture similar to the Rosemary Chicken recipe, adding much more than two tablespoons for the initial roasting time.

Verdict: Needs work

Mediterranean Herb-Roasted Chicken(source: Cooking Club of America)

5 teaspoons chopped fresh rosemary
4 teaspoons chopped garlic
½ teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 ½ teaspoons dried thyme
½ teaspoon dried savory or oregano
¼ teaspoon pepper
3 medium red potatoes, cut into 8 wedges each
2 medium onions, cut into 1-inch wedges
4 whole chicken legs
1 (4-oz.) pkg. multi-colored mini sweet bell peppers, halved, or 1 red bell pepper, cut into 1-inch wedges
1 medium zucchini, halved lengthwise, cut into 2-inch pieces

Heat oven to 375°F. Finely chop rosemary, garlic and salt together; place in small bowl. Stir in lemon juice, oil, thyme, savory and pepper.

Spray bottom of wide shallow roasting pan with cooking spray. Scatter potatoes and onions in pan; add chicken. Spoon 2 tablespoons of the herb mixture over chicken and vegetables in pan; toss to coat. Place chicken on top of potatoes and onion.

Bake 45 minutes. Remove from oven; baste with accumulated juices. Scatter peppers and zucchini around chicken; spoon remaining herb mixture over chicken and all vegetables. Bake 20 to 30 minutes or until chicken is browned and no longer pink in center.

4 servings

Recycle: lemon juice bottle, olive oil bottle

Compost: rosemary stems, garlic skins, onion skins

Chestnut Stuffing

2010-01-24T21:26:00.004-05:00

Okay, I admit that one of the reasons I suggested nuts as the theme for this year’s Thanksgiving dinner (or, rather, last year’s at this point…) is because I wanted to make this stuffing again. I’ve made it a couple times before and enjoyed it. If you’ve never tasted chestnuts, the flavor is milder than most nuts, and the texture is softer and more crumbly.

I admit, however, that preparing the chestnuts is a pain. You can buy peeled chestnuts in jars, which would be much easier, but they’re also considerably more expensive. So I started with the raw, unpeeled nuts.

The directions say to drain the nuts after simmering. However, from experience, I have learned that it’s better to leave them in the water until you peel them. In other words, remove them from the pan one at a time, make two gashes at right angles in the pointed end, extend these cuts around, and pull back the peel. Just inside the peel is this fibrous stuff that may or may not stick to the nutmeat. I eventually decided that it’s not worth it to go to a lot of trouble trying to get that all off if it doesn’t come off easily. And yes, this all is hard on the fingers…because of all that, and for reasons of balance (i.e. I feel the nut level in this dish is a little high), you might want to reduce the amount of nuts a little.

This was the first time I’ve tried making dried bread cubes, and it turned out to be easy. I bought a loaf of cheap sandwich bread, cut 7 slices into cubes, spread them on a cookie sheet, and set it in my oven (it’s a gas oven with a pilot light, so it’s always warm even when turned off). Within a day they had dried out.

The recipe as written calls for celery, but I don’t care for the stuff so I left it out.

If you’re looking for this in your BH&G cookbook, it’s listed as a variant of Bread Stuffing; I’ve rewritten the recipe slightly to make it easier to follow. The cookbook says that the basic recipe without the nuts makes about 3 cups, or enough to stuff a 4-5 lb chicken, and that you should double the recipe for a 10 lb turkey. But the nuts add quite a bit of volume (as would the celery if you used it). We didn’t actually stuff the turkey with this, so I can’t say whether a single recipe of this is enough for a turkey.

Verdict: Yum! This one's a keeper!

Chestnut Stuffing
(source: Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book)

3 cups (1 pound) fresh chestnuts in shells

3 tbsp chopped onion

1 cup chopped celery

6 tablespoons butter

4 cups dry bread cubes (about 7 slices cut in ½-inch cubes)

1 tsp salt

¼ tsp pepper

½ tsp poultry seasoning

½ tsp ground sage

¼ cup turkey or chicken broth

Put the chestnuts in a pan and cover chestnuts with water; simmer 15 minutes. Drain. Make gash in shells with sharp knife; peel off while warm. Chop nuts.

Cook onion and celery in butter. Combine with bread, seasonings, and chopped nuts. Toss with broth.

Recycle: broth cans, if any; spice jars

Compost: chestnut shells, vegetable trimmings

Baked Acorn Squash

2010-01-10T19:54:00.002-05:00

OldRoses did a great job of posting holiday recipes in a timely fashion. 'A' has gotten behind over the holidays and is trying to get caught up...

A few weeks before Thanksgiving, I purchased an acorn squash at a farmer’s market. Before preparing it, I consulted my trusty Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. One suggestion was to bake it with brown sugar and applesauce. I tried this, and it turned out to be so wonderfully good that I decided to make this for the Nutty Thanksgiving. Hey, an acorn is a nut, right? Close enough.

I agree with OldRoses's previous comment that squash (winter squash, specifically - summer squash is pretty soft) is difficult to cut and peel. Butchering a butternut squash usually gives me sore fingers and maybe a blister. But - that's only true for RAW squash. COOKED squash is much easier to deal with. The beauty of this recipe is that your interaction with the raw squash is minimal. All you have to do is cut the thing in half and scoop out the seeds. Removing the cooked squash from its shell is relatively easy on the hands.

Although we’re dealing with squash, this dish is sweet, not savory, even though I didn’t add very much brown sugar, maybe a tablespoon per half. The flavor has a fruity quality to it. (Hey, squash actually is a fruit, technically...) You could almost serve this dish as a dessert. And it’s so easy! It's ideal to make at the same time as a casserole or meatloaf, when the oven is turned on anyway.

Verdict: Yum! This one's a keeper!

Baked Acorn Squash
(source: Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book)

1 acorn squash

1 cup applesauce

Butter

Brown sugar

Halve the squash and remove seeds. Bake cut side down in a shallow pan at 350° for 35 to 40 minutes. Turn cut side up. Brush each half with butter and sprinkle with brown sugar. Fill with ½ cup applesauce. Bake about 20 minutes longer.

Recycle: applesauce jar

Compost: squash shell

Meat Filled Jumbo Shells

2010-01-03T13:38:00.000-05:00

This is another oldie but goodie whose origins are lost in the mists of time. I may have forgotten where I found the recipe, but I haven’t forgotten why I tried it. In my forties, I became an exception to the rule that people of Northern European descent are able to consume dairy products throughout their lives.

I love cheese-stuffed shells, but after I developed lactose intolerance, they didn’t love me. Meat stuffed shells sounded like just the ticket. I eventually found a solution to my digestive difficulties in Activia yogurt. It’s not a complete cure, but I can now eat dairy with minimal gastric distress.

I love this recipe because it’s easy and each shell tastes like it has its own little meatball inside. Stuffing the shells can be a little time consuming. A soup spoon holds just the right amount of meat to fit into each shell. It’s very rhythmical: scoop, stuff, place in pan, scoop, stuff, place in pan. With the aluminum foil covering the pan, there are no worries about spaghetti sauce splattering all over your oven.

Verdict: Yum!! This one’s a keeper!!

Meat Filled Jumbo Shells(source: unknown)

1 box (12 oz.) Jumbo Shells, uncooked
1 lb. ground beef
1 lb. ground pork
4 eggs, slightly beaten
1 cup flavored bread crumbs
1 cup (4 oz.) shredded Mozzarella cheese (optional)
¾ cup finely chopped onion
¾ teaspoon dried oregano leaves
½ teaspoon salt
⅛ teaspoon ground black pepper
3 cups (28 oz. jar) spaghetti sauce
Grated Parmesan cheese (optional)

Cook Jumbo Shells in boiling salted water for 15 minutes. Replace boiling water with cold water to stop cooking until you are ready to use. Brown beef, pork and onion in skillet; drain. Combine meat, onion, eggs, bread crumbs, Mozzarella cheese (if desired), oregano, salt and pepper. Fill each shell with about 2 tablespoons meat filling. Spread a thin layer of sauce on bottom of 13 x 9-inch baking pan. Place the shells in the pan; cover with remaining sauce. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese, if desired. Cover with aluminum foil; bake at 350°F about 45 minutes or until hot and bubbly.

10 to 12 servings.

Recycle: spaghetti sauce bottle

Compost: onion skins, egg shells

Crazy for Cocktails: Margarita

2010-01-01T12:12:00.000-05:00

I welcomed in the New Year with my favorite cocktail, Margarita. I began my hunt for a recipe at the Jose′ Cuervo site where I was directed to use a Margarita mix. I think I’ve been very clear how I feel about pre-made anything. So I hopped over to my new favorite site, About.com: Cocktails and wasn’t disappointed. Colleen has recipes for all kinds of mixers for cocktails.

She also offers the alternative of sugar, instead of the usual salt, to rim the glass. I don’t eat a lot of salt, so I have always ordered my margaritas with it, but I have to admit that I am intrigued by the idea of using sugar.

Now a word about tools. Other than the alcohol, I haven’t wanted to invest a lot of money in my little cocktail experiments. Instead of running out and buying a lot of fancy gizmos that I may or may not ever use again, I’ve just been using whatever I have on hand. For a stirrer, I’ve used a chopstick. Instead of a shot glass, I’ve used my measuring cup. For the margarita, I needed a cocktail shaker which I don’t have, so I substituted a Ziplock container. Glassware has also been a problem. I’ve substituted plain old drinking glasses for rocks glasses and in the case of the margarita, I used an old-fashioned wide champagne glass:

How Not To Make A Margarita

My first margarita tasted a little “off”. I decided that it must be too much triple sec. My measuring cup starts accurate measurements at 2 ounces. Anything less than that such as the ½ ounce of triple sec has to be guesstimated. I guessed that I guesstimated a little on the heavy side. The second one tasted better with less triple sec. I still have lots of mixer left so I’ll probably be trying margaritas again some time. Maybe with sugar on the rim.

Margarita(source: About.com: Cocktails)

1 ½ oz tequila
½ oz triple sec
Dash of lemon or lime juice
3 oz sour mix
Lime wedge for garnish
Salt or sugar to rim the glass (optional)

Pour the ingredients into a cocktail shaker with ice cubes.

Shake well.

If desired, salt the rim of a chilled margarita glass.

Pour contents, with ice, into the glass.

Garnish with the lime wedge.

Recycle: tequila bottle, triple sec bottle

Compost: lime

Christmas Cookie of the Week: Pfeffernusen

2009-12-30T18:46:00.001-05:00

For my final Christmas cookie recipe, I made a cookie that I remember from the Christmases of my childhood. Christmas cookies were not a part of our tradition except for Pfeffernuse. My father always bought a box and ate most of them himself. The rest of the family didn’t care for them. I never understood why he liked cookies that tasted just plain weird. I chalked it up to the powdered sugar. He liked powdered sugar doughnuts, so it made sense, sort of, that he liked cookies with powdered sugar.

Years later, when a relative was sharing family secrets with me, I got an inkling of why he liked pfeffernuse cookies. My father had a German grandmother. It’s not surprising that I never heard of her. My parents were born during the Great Depression and grew up during World War II when everything German was bad. People of German descent were suspect so families with any German connections concealed that fact from everyone.

Pfeffernuse cookies were most likely a holiday tradition during my father’s childhood prior to WWII. The taste of them years later probably brought back fond memories for him. In honor of the woman I never knew, I made pfeffernuse cookies for Christmas.

I chose a recipe from Martha Stewart. Her cookies are always so buttery. I was a little concerned because the batter was very wet but I was able to roll it into balls with a little effort. The cookies baked up perfectly. Shaking them in the powdered sugar was fun. The taste was . . . well, I don’t know how my father could stand eating those hard, stale-tasting little cookies for so many years. These were soft and flavorful. They will become part of my holiday tradition.

Verdict: Yum!! This one’s a keeper!!

Pfeffernussen(source: Martha Stewart Holiday Baking 2002)

1 ¼ cups confectioners’ sugar
2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon freshly ground pepper
¾ teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground allspice
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
¼ teaspoon baking soda
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
¾ cup firmly packed light-brown sugar
1 large egg
¼ cup unsulfured molasses
½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Place the confectioners’ sugar in a brown paper bag.

In a medium bowl, combine flour, pepper, cinnamon, allspice, nutmet, cloves, and baking soda. Set aside.

Place butter, brown sugar, and molasses in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with paddle attachment. Beat on medium until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Beat in egg and vanilla. With mixer on low speed, add flour mixture; beat until just combined. Pinch off dough in tablespoon amounts; roll into 1 ¼-inch balls. Arrange balls 1 ½ inches apart on prepared baking sheets. (Dough can be frozen at this point, covered tightly with plastic wrap, up to 1 month.)

Bake until cookies are golden and firm to the touch with slight crackng, about 15 minutes, rotating sheets halfway through. Transfer sheets to a wire rack to cool slightly, about 10 minutes. Working in batches, place cookies in paper bag; shake until well coated. Let cool completely on wire rack. Store in an airtight container.

Makes 3 dozen

Recycle: molasses bottle, vanilla bottle

Compost: egg shells

Crazy for Cocktails: White Russian

2009-12-29T15:34:00.003-05:00

Not being a black coffee drinker, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the Black Russian. I’m more of a café au lait person. I like a little coffee with my cream and sugar. So I was really looking forward to trying a White Russian.

Using the Kahlua recipe of 2 parts Kahlua and 1 part vodka, I added Half & Half but didn’t stir it. I’m learning mixology, the study of mixing cocktails, courtesy of Colleen Graham on About.com:Cocktails. I’ve learned important things like adding ingredients in the order in which they are given in the recipe. This makes sense to me as a cook and baker.

In the case of a White Russian cocktail, if you mix the cream into the other ingredients, it becomes another cocktail, a Dirty Bird. And I have to say, drinking the White Russian with the cream on top and the alcohol underneath gives the impression that you are drinking coffee ice cream with a kick. Yum!!

White Russian(source: Kahlua.com)

2 parts Kahlua
1 part vodka
Add milk or cream

Pour over ice in a rocks glass.

Recycle: Kahlua bottle, vodka bottle

Crazy for Cocktails: Black Russian

2009-12-28T13:02:00.001-05:00

When I saw that the recipe for the Chocolate Tart called for Kahlua, the ubiquitous TV commercials immediately sprang to mind. I had just visited the Bacardi site in search of a recipe for mojitos, so I searched the Kahlua site for cocktail recipes. There were about a dozen, two of which were popular when I was a child, Black Russian and White Russian.

I had often overheard these cocktails mentioned in adult conversations, but had never actually seen either one. I grew up in a dry household. Alcohol, kept in the cabinet over the refrigerator, was only served to guests. My parents didn’t drink. Or so they claimed. Teenagers are often awake late at night and that was when I discovered that Late Night with Johnny Carson wasn’t the only reason that my father stayed up later than my mother. He liked his Scotch. There were even rumors that at neighborhood parties, his consumption of Scotch had to be closely monitored lest he start trying on lampshades.

I opted to start with the Black Russian. The recipe was simple. 2 parts Kahlua, 1 part vodka, pour over ice in a rocks glass. Whatever that is. Unlike my parents, I do drink. Outside of my home. I keep no alcohol in my house. So I know nothing about barware. A little Googling led me to a wonderful columnist on About.com:Cocktails, Colleen Graham. From her I learned that a “rocks glass” is that short, fat little glass from which my father drank his Scotch. I wasn’t about to run out and buy new glasses for a cocktail that I may or may not like. I settle on using my usual tall glasses. Having used them, I can see the wisdom of rocks glasses.

Interestingly enough, her recipe for Black Russian was the opposite of the Kahlua recipe. She uses 1 ¾ oz vodka, ¾ oz coffee liqueur, then instructs you to build the ingredients in an old-fashioned glass filled with ice and stir well. I decided to try both versions.

I started with Colleen’s recipe. It was okay. Nothing to write home about. Then I reversed the ratio with the Kahlua recipe, which turned out to be fabulous. I loved the smooth coffee flavor of the Kahlua with just a kick from the vodka. Hmmm . . . maybe I’ll go out and buy those glasses after all.

Black Russian(source: Kahlua.com)

2 parts Kahlua
1 part vodka

Pour over ice in a rocks glass.

Recycle: Kahlua bottle, vodka bottle

Chocolate Tart with Hazelnut Shortbread Crust

2009-12-27T13:11:00.000-05:00

As long as I was going to be doing something completely different for Christmas dinner, I wanted something really spectacular for dessert. It would have to be chocolate and totally unlike anything I had ever attempted. That’s a pretty tall order. I surprised myself, finding exactly what I wanted rather quickly: Chocolate Tart with Hazelnut Shortbread Crust. Mmmm…chocolate…hazelnut…shortbread. Perfection.

I decided to go all out and buy a tart pan rather than making do with a pie plate. And so began The Great Tart Pan Hunt. The hunt spanned two days and three malls. I visited kitchen specialty stores including my favorite, Williams Sonoma, and various department stores. And came up empty. Either the store(s) didn’t carry tart pans or they had tart pans but in the wrong size or carried a glorified pie plate (slanted sides) with little ridges on the inside giving the illusion of a tart pan as opposed to a tart pan with straight, crimped sides.

In the end, I was forced to do what I had been trying to avoid. I went to Amazon.com. There, I found a nice selection of tart pans in various sizes, manufacturers and materials. I read all of the reviews and ordered that one that best suited my recipe. I hate malls, especially during the holiday season, but in these difficult economic times, I was willing to make an exception and brave the crowds to help out my local brick and mortar stores. But I can’t help them if they don’t have the merchandise I need.

I had another briefer hunt, for unflavored gelatin. Three grocery stores before I found anything other than Jello. Buying Kahlua was a whole lot easier. In fact, I had a choice of sizes and purchased a smaller bottle. The recipe called for 1 tablespoon so normally I would have left it out, but I had other plans for the Kahlua. I did skip the hazelnut oil, substituting canola oil. I happened to have whole-wheat flour on hand. Not the pastry flour as called for in the recipe, but I thought I could substitute it with no problem. Another substitution that I made that worked out well was lightly rubbing canola oil on the tart pan in place of the recommended cooking spray of which I had none.

I used the egg whites from the two yolks instead of dried egg whites. There is a note accompanying this recipe that dried egg whites are pasteurized and a wise choice when making an uncooked filling. Thankfully, using raw egg whites was not detrimental to my health and I was able to sample this dish and review it.

When I first read over this recipe, it seemed incredibly complex. I hate recipes that have too many steps, but I found that by following each step exactly, everything flowed beautifully. It was surprisingly easy to make.

As for the taste, well that was a little disappointing. The hazelnut shortbread crust was heavenly. It would make a great cookie. The filling was too light, both the texture and the taste. I would have preferred a denser texture and more chocolate-y taste. Overall though, it wasn’t bad.

Verdict: Not bad, but I won’t be making this again

Chocolate Tart with Hazelnut Shortbread Crust(source: EatingWell: November/December 2008)

Crust
1 cup whole-wheat pastry flour
¼ cup all-purpose flour
½ cup hazelnuts
¼ cup sugar
½ teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
2 tablespoons hazelnut oil, or canola oil
1 tablespoon ice water

Filling
1 ½ teaspoons unflavored gelatin
1 tablespoon water
¾ cup low-fat milk
2 large egg yolks
2 ½ tablespoons plus ¼ cup sugar, divided
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, finely chopped
1 tablespoon coffee liqueur, such as Kahlua (optional)
4 dried egg whites, reconstituted according to package directions (equivalent to 2 egg whites)
1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar

Preheat oven to 400°F.

To prepare crust: Coat a 9-inch tart pan with cooking spray. Combine whole-wheat pastry flour, ¼ cup all-purpose flour, hazelnuts, ¼ cup sugar and salt in a food processor; process until the nuts are finely ground. Add butter one piece at a time, pulsing once or twice after each addition, until incorporated. Add oil and ice water and pulse just until incorporated. Turn the dough out into the prepared pan (it will be crumbly), spread evenly and press firmly into the bottom and all the way up the sides to form a crust.

Bake the crust until set and the edges are beginning to brown, about 15 minutes. Let cool on a wire rack.

To prepare filling: Sprinkle gelatin over water in a small bowl; let stand, stirring once or twice, while you prepare the rest of the filling.

Heat milk in a medium saucepan over medium heat until steaming (but not boiling); remove from the heat to cool slightly.

Whisk egg yolks, 2 ½ tablespoons sugar and 1 tablespoon flour in a medium bowl until combined. Gradually whisk in ½ cup of the hot milk. Whisk the egg yolk mixture into the pan with the remaining hot milk. Return to the heat and cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon (do not boil), about 1 minute. Remove from the heat; whisk in chocolate until completely melted. Whisk in the softened gelatin and coffee liqueur (if using) until smooth.

Beat reconstituted egg whites and cream of tartar in a large bowl with an electric mixer on low speed until frothy. Increase speed to high and beat until soft peaks form. Gradually add the remaining ¼ cup sugar and beat until stiff peaks form, 3 to 5 minutes. Gently fold the chocolate custard into the egg whites until blended. Spoon the filling into the crust; smooth the top with the back of a spoon and chill, uncovered, until set, about 1 hour.

Recycle: oil bottle, milk bottle, Kahlua bottle

Compost: egg shells

Crazy for Cocktails: Mojito

2009-12-26T23:38:00.002-05:00

I resisted the siren call of cable TV for years. I didn’t watch a lot of TV. I’m more of a book and movie person. Reality TV does nothing for me. Bachelors, Bachlorettes and Idols don’t do it for me. Nor do Big Brothers and Survivors. The internet, on the other hand, became a bigger and bigger part of my life. Banking, shopping, income taxes, blogging, email, I was spending more and more time online. Time to upgrade from dial-up.

After 14 months of DSL hell, I switched to cable. And discovered my television. Who knew that I could watch Law & Order any time, day or night? I began to branch out. CSI, NCIS, Criminal Minds, Dexter and, my all-time favorite, House.

CSI: Miami fascinates me. No workplace could possibly function with that much cleavage being flashed around. Whenever the ME kneels over a corpse, I hold my breath waiting for a wardrobe malfunction. When the characters aren’t flashing cleavage or trying to ignore flashing cleavage, they’re offering someone a mojita, drinking a mojito or examining a corpse who died after drinking a mojita.

Which lead me to the logical question: what is a mojito? A little Googling told me that it is a drink made with rum. I just happened to have a bottle of rum in the house that was used in the Rum Balls. A quick visit to the Bacardi site and I added a lime and mint to my shopping list. I was making Cuban Pork for Christmas. Mojitos seemed the perfect accompaniment.

The pork was excellent. The mojito on the other hand was not a revelation. Since I was using sugar instead of simple syrup, I discovered that the ice prevented the sugar from being dissolved by the rum and club soda. So the second time (one always has to have a second drink, just to make sure) I poured the rum in before the ice, stirring to make sure the sugar was dissolved. The lime offset the taste of the rum and the mint added a refreshing touch, but it didn’t wow me so much that I wanted to run right out and buy a push-up bra.

Bacardi Mojito Cocktail(source: Bacardi.com)

1 1/2 oz. Bacardi Superior Rum
12 fresh spearmint leaves
1/2 lime
2 Tbsp simple syrup (or 4 tsp sugar)
Top with club soda

Muddle mint leaves and lime in a tall glass. Cover with simple syrup and fill glass with ice. Add Bacardi Rum and club soda. Stir well. Garnish glass with lime wedge and sprigs. of mint.

Recycle: Rum bottle

Compost: lime, spearmint stems

Cuban Pork

2009-12-25T22:05:00.000-05:00

After decades of doing the same things every Christmas, I decided this year would be different. Instead of a Christmas tree, I would make a gingerbread house. I would bake Christmas cookies, trying a new recipe every weekend. And I would finally end the annual torture inflicted on an innocent piece of roast beef.

My ancestry is mainly English. My family always had roast beef for Christmas in the place of the usual turkey. My mother was a champ at torturing roast beef. There was no medium or rare in her kitchen, only well-done which meant cooking the roast until it was blackened and half of its original size. Eating it was like chewing the proverbial shoe leather.

In my own kitchen, I aimed for rare but usually came up with medium on the outside, rare up to half an inch and raw the rest of the way. After failing year after year for three decades, I think that it’s time I added “properly cooking a roast beef” to the list of skills I am congenitally unable to master. Other items on the list include baking biscuits from scratch, drawing a straight line and crochet.

I pulled a recipe from my “Recipes To Try” folder on my computer that was completely different from my traditional holiday meal. It’s pork, it’s Cuban and it’s cooked in a crockpot. I wouldn’t even have to clean the oven afterwards. Perfect!

I had my doubts at first that I would be able to successfully cook this dish. I unknowingly brought home a pork shoulder with a bone. I’ve never cooked anything in a crockpot that had a bone in it. Would the bone explode? Get all mushy and yucky? Would the marrow melt out into the juices that would be needed when serving the pork?

Marinating is usually a great idea, but I didn’t have a bowl or baking dish large enough or deep enough to accommodate the shoulder of a large mammal. Nor did I have a bag of the correct size. In the end, I used a large salad bowl and (don’t read this if you’re squeamish), a 5-gallon (new, clean) trash bag. When I mixed the marinade (grapefruit juice! Whoda thunkit?), it smelled like garbage. I assured myself that it was just the cumin. After 24 hours, my entire refrigerator smelled like garbage. I was grateful to finally be able to pour the entire thing into my crockpot.

I am happy to report that the garbage smell was transformed into a savory aroma when cooked. So savory that the Fur Patrol was begging for scraps as I shredded the meat. Nothing bad happened to the bones. The meat literally fell off of them. Add onions and salsa and roll in a tortilla and I think I may have my new Christmas tradition. It was that good.

I have included the Pico de Gallo recipe that was part of the original recipe although I didn’t try it myself. I was feeling lazy and opted for a jar of organic salsa.

Verdict: Yum!! This one’s a keeper!!

Cuban Pork

(source: BHG.com)

½ cup lime juice
¼ cup water
¼ cup grapefruit juice
3 cloves galic, minced
1 teaspoon dried oregano, crushed
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon ground cumin
¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
2 bay leaves
1 3-pound boneless pork shoulder roast
1 cup sliced onion
Vegetable-flavored flour tortillas or flour tortillas
Pico do Gall or bottled salsa
Lettuce or purchased avocado dip (optional)

For marinade, in a small bowl combine lime juice, water, grapefruit juice, garlic, oregano, salt, cumin, pepper, and bay leaves. Trim fat from meat. If necessary, cut roast to fit into slow cooker. With a large fork, pierce meat in several places. Place in a large plastic bag set in a deep bowl or a baking dish. Pour marinade over meat. Close bag. Chill in the refrigerator for 6 to 24 hour, turning occasionally.

In a 3-1/2- to 5-quart slow cooker place onion. Top with meat and marinade mixture.

Cover; cook on low-heat setting for 10 to 12 hours or on high-heat setting for 5 to 6 hours.

Transfer meat to a cutting board; cool slightly. Skim fat from juices; keep warm. Remove bay leaves; discard. Use 2 forks to gently separate the meat into shreds. Transfer shredded meat to a serving platter. With a slotted spoon, remove onions from juices. Transfer onions to same serving platter. Serve meat and onions in tortillas with small bowls of the hot juices and Pico de Gallo. If desired, pass lettuce and guacamole.

Makes 8 to 10 servings.

Pico de Gallo: In a medium bowl combine 2 peeled and finely chopped medium tomatoes, 2 tablespoons finely chopped red onion, 2 tablespoons snipped fresh cilantro, 1 teaspoon lime juice, ⅛ teaspoon salt, and dash sugar. Mx well. Cover; chill in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours or overnight. Makes about 1 ¼ cups.

Recycle: lime juice bottle, grapefruit juice bottle, salsa bottle

Compost: garlic skins, onion skins

Christmas Cookie of the Week: Bacardi Rum Balls

2009-12-23T13:45:00.000-05:00

The record breaking Nor’Easter that buried New Jersey over the weekend threatened to disrupt my holiday baking schedule. After shoveling my driveway , especially the huge wall of snow the plow left at the end, and my walk and front porch so that the mail carrier could get through (gotta love online shopping – your packages come to you!), I had no desire to spend several hours in the kitchen baking cookies.

So I put aside the recipe I had planned to bake and instead made Bacardi Rum Balls, a no-bake option that I had originally planned on making the same weekend that I made the Peppermint Bark, another no-bake recipe. I had overscheduled myself that weekend and ended up putting the Rum Balls recipe aside. This weekend was the perfect opportunity to revisit it. Just grind up first the walnuts and then the vanilla wafers in the food processor (no liquid, no mess), stir in honey and rum, and then sit comfortably while making 1-inch balls and rolling them in confectioners’ sugar.

Except that’s not what happened. Grinding up walnuts and vanilla wafers was a breeze. It was when I added the honey and rum that things began to go terribly wrong. There is too much liquid in this recipe. I tried adding more vanilla wafer crumbs hoping that they would soak up some of the liquid, but to no avail. The result was too sticky to roll and too wet to hold its shape. It also soaked up all of the confectioners’ sugar on its surface.

They passed the taste test though. Yum! They are quite addictive. And after an afternoon of flinging snow around, I definitely needed a drink.

Verdict: Needs work

Bacardi Rum Balls(source: Bacardi Rum)

¼ cup Bacardi Gold rum
2 cups ground walnuts (from 2 ½ cups chopped walnuts)
1 ½ cups vanilla wafer crumbs
½ cup honey
Confectioners’ sugar

In a medium bowl, combine walnuts and wafer crumbs. Stir in Bacardi Gold and honey. Shape into 1-inch balls. Roll in confectioners’ sugar.

Store in tightly covered container.

Makes approximately 2 ½ dozen

Recycle: rum bottle, honey bottle

Chicken Marsala with Mushrooms

2009-12-20T13:23:00.001-05:00

This is an oldie but goodie, a leftover from the days when I was cooking for a picky eater who was only willing to try new dishes if they had mushrooms in them. I added mushrooms to a lot of recipes in an effort to get her to try new meals. When I went hunting for the origins of this recipe and found it in my 365 Ways to Cook Chicken, I was surprised to learn that I hadn’t added mushrooms. Instead, there are two very different versions of Chicken Marsala in the book, one with and one without mushrooms. After reviewing the version without the mushrooms, I think I’ll stick to this one.

I don’t pound the chicken breasts thin. They cook just fine in their normal plump state. And it was a lot easier to convince a picky eater to eat chicken that actually looked like chicken. I make my usual substitution of beef bouillon for beef stock. Really, other than would-be contestants on TV cooking shows, who has beef stock on hand these days? As for that “salt to taste”, it has been my unhappy experience that professional chefs like salt a whole lot more than I do. In the few restaurant versions I have sampled, salt has been added with such a heavy hand that it masks the delicate flavors of the wine and the chicken. I prefer my version.

Verdict: Yum!! This one’s a keeper!!

Chicken Marsala with Mushrooms
(source: 365 Ways to Cook Chicken)

3 tablespoons flour
½ teaspoon freshly ground pepper
4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves, pounded to ¼-inch thickness
4 tablespoons butter or margarine
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
½ cup chopped onion
2 garlic cloves, chopped
½ pound mushrooms, sliced
3 tablespoons dry Marsala
⅔ cup beef stock
Salt to taste

Mix flour and pepper in a shallow dish. Dredge chicken in flour mixture to coat; shake off excess.

In a large frying pan, heat 2 tablespoons of the butter in oil over medium heat. Add chicken and cook until lightly brown, about 3 minutes a side. Remove and keep warm. Add onion and garlic and sauté until onion is tender, about 3 minutes. Add mushrooms and cook until they are lightly browned, 3 to 5 minutes.

Return chicken to pan, stir in Marsala and beef stock. Bring to a boil reduce heat, and simmer until liquid reduces by one-third. Whisk in remaining butter. Season with salt and additional pepper to taste.

Recycle: vegetable oil bottle, wine bottle

Compost: onion skins, garlic skins

Christmas Cookie of the Week: Spritz

2009-12-16T13:18:00.000-05:00

I cheated this week. I made a recipe that I’ve made before. Once. A long time ago. But nothing says Christmas like Spritz, so I got out the cookie press that has been gathering dust in the back of the cupboard and my trusty Betty Crocker cookbook and baked a batch of Spritz.

I chose the Betty Crocker recipe because I know that it works. I tried another Spritz recipe a few years ago that was a disaster. The problem was that it was too stiff. Comparing the two recipes, it was easy to see why. Betty uses significantly less flour and sugar. Fewer dry ingredients equals a wetter dough which is easier to push through the cookie press.

I was surprised at the saltiness of Betty’s dough. The salty taste is less noticeable after baking but still definitely there. I liked the taste of the other recipe better. Again, looking at both recipes, the reason was clear. Betty uses ½ teaspoon salt and salted butter. The other recipe uses unsalted butter and only a dash of salt. Hmmm . . . I see the beginnings of an OldRoses recipe, don’t you? A little experimentation with ingredients and I can probably come up with the perfect OldRoses’ Spritz recipe.

Using only ¼ of the dough at a time in the cookie press makes it easy to switch shapes. I made trees, wreaths, poinsettias and ornaments and decorated them with red and green sugars.

Verdict: Needs work

Spritz(source: Betty Crocker)

1 cup butter or margarine, softened
½ cup sugar
2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon salt
1 egg
1 teaspoon almond extract or vanilla

Heat oven to 400°F. Cream butter and sugar. Blend in remaining ingredients. Fill cookie press with ¼ dough at a time; from desired shapes on ungreased baking sheet. Bake 6 to 9 minutes until set but not brown.

About 5 dozen cookies

Recycle: almond extract or vanilla bottle

Compost: eggshells

Baked Steak Burritos

2009-12-14T13:21:00.000-05:00

This is one of those recipes that is made with totally fake ingredients but I thought that if I liked it enough it would be worth trying to duplicate like the macaroni and cheese. In fact, my version might even be better.

First, though, a word on those ingredients. Have you tried to buy cheese lately? Almost all of it is low-fat. Besides not tasting right, it doesn’t cook right. Really nasty stuff. It took some digging around the dairy case, but I finally found some “real” cheese. My fellow Americans, please eat less and exercise more so that we put this low-fat nonsense behind us.

My first quibble with this recipe is the steak. I wasn’t really thrilled at cooking it in half a cup of butter but trying to stuff the tacos with “bite-sized” strips and then trying to actually eat tacos stuffed with “bite-sized” pieces, which kept falling out, made the whole thing a waste of time. This would work much better made with lean ground beef. No need for butter and no pieces of steak sliding down your chin as you try to eat your dinner.

My next problem was the size of the flour tortillas. The recipe calls for fajita-sized tacos, but they are way too small to properly fold and roll. Large tortillas would work much better.

And lastly, one 13x9-inch baking dish is also too small. I was only able to fit 9, not 12 burritos in mine. Which is pottery. I don’t have a glass dish that size.

When all was said and done, this recipe tasted remarkably like chimichangas, a recipe which I don’t believe I’ve ever reviewed here. I hardly ever make it since my daughter left home. She was the one who liked it. I wasn’t thrilled with the taste and all those tortillas were a pain to fill and roll. The best part was that the leftover chimichangas froze well to be thawed and reheated at a later date when I needed something quickly for dinner but had no time to cook.

I froze the leftover burritos. It remains to be seen if they will also thaw and reheat well.

In the end, this recipe just wasn’t worth playing around with. I really have no desire to eat any version of it again.

Verdict: Not bad, but I don’t think that I’ll be making this one again.

Baked Steak Burritos(source: BettyCrocker.com)

½ cup butter or margarine
1 package (1.25 oz) taco seasoning mix
1 ½ lb beef boneless sirloin tip steak, cut into thin bite-size strips
1 can (16 oz) refried beans
1 package (10.5 oz) flour tortillas for soft tacos & fajitas (12 tortillas)
2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese (8 ox)
3 medium green onions, thinly sliced (3 tablespoons)
1 can (10 oz) enchilada sauce
1 cup shredded Mexican cheese blend (4 oz)

Heat oven to 400°F. In 10-inch skillet, melt butter over medium heat. Stir in taco seasoning mix. Add beef strips; cook 5 to 6 minutes, stirring occasionally, until desired doneness; drain.

Meanwhile, place refried beans in microwavable dish. Microwave uncovered on High 2 minutes, stirring once or twice.

Spread each tortilla with refried beans to within ¼ inch of edge. Top each with beef, Cheddar cheese and onions. Roll up, folding in sides. In ungreased 13x9-inch (3 quart) glass baking dish, place burritos with seam sides down. Pour enchilada sauce over burritos. Sprinkle with Mexican cheese blend.

Bake uncovered 7 to 12 minutes or until burritos are thoroughly heated and cheese is melted.

Recycle: refried beans can, enchilada sauce can

Compost: green onion greens

The Wooden Spoon Cooks hold a Bûche de Noël Contest

2009-12-13T21:51:00.003-05:00

Last fall, the Wooden Spoon cooks were part of a group that took a trip to Frelinghuysen Arboretum (see the report here). While there, we saw a flyer for an upcoming workshop on how to make a Bûche de Noël, which is a traditional French dessert. It’s basically a jelly roll cake – a thin layer of cake rolled up with filling inside – decorated to look like a log (“Bûche de Noël” is French for “Christmas Log”). We decided that we would each make one for the Rutgers Gardens holiday potluck, and let the other guests choose their favorite. The results – at the party – are shown above. For the recipes, look here and here.

Cranberry-Orange Relish with Walnuts

2009-12-13T13:08:00.003-05:00

This recipe is slightly modified from the one I made for our last Wooden Spoon Thanksgiving two years ago. I cut the original recipe in half, cut the spices in half again (i.e. 1/4 the original), and added walnuts, to meet the requirement that everything at this dinner have nuts. The recipe I actually made is given below; for the original recipe, see here.

Because there was less, I was able to make this easily in a 2 quart saucepan. This amount is probably enough for 4 people at least. Maybe because there was less, the relish started to scorch near the end of the cooking time, but fortunately this didn’t seem to affect the flavor. It also got darker and thicker than I remember, but that’s okay. Even with half the amount of ginger and cinnamon, I felt it was plenty spicy. You might want to cut back still further.

I added walnuts because I had seen other relish recipes that included them. We decided that this was an excellent idea. The walnuts add more texture, and the flavor complements the rest of the relish well. I added them late in the cooking process because I thought they might get soggy if I put them in earlier, but I haven’t actually tested this.

Addendum, 1/10/10: I made this again as below but with only half the amount (i.e. 1/2 tsp each) of ginger and cinnamon. I think this is about the right amount. Also, you might want to reduce the amount of walnuts a little, say to 1/3 cup.

Verdict: Yum! This one's a keeper!

Cranberry-Orange Relish with Walnuts
(source: modified from a recipe in USA Weekend, Nov. 13, 2005)

½ cup brown sugar

½ cup honey

2 cups orange juice

1 tsp ground ginger

grated zest of 1 orange

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 bag fresh cranberries

½ cup chopped walnuts

1 tsp salt

In a medium-sized, heavy saucepan over low heat, combine the sugar, honey, and orange juice. Simmer until completely dissolved. Add ginger, zest, and cinnamon; stir to combine. Add the cranberries and simmer, uncovered and stirring occasionally, until mixture begins to thicken, about two hours. Add the walnuts after about an hour and a half. When thickened, add salt. Chill and serve.

Recycle: honey jar

Compost: ginger peels

Buche de Noel

2009-12-09T13:13:00.001-05:00

When I agreed to the Buche de Noel Bake-off, I was certain that I had several recipes at home. I distinctly remembered seeing them. My memory was faulty, however. When I finally took a look at my numerous cookbooks, not a single one had a recipe for a Buche de Noel, not even my beloved Betty Crocker International Cookbook.

Normally at this point, I would have hit the internet but my computer monitor was in its death throes and reading anything on it was next to impossible. I was planning on replacing it during the Black Friday sales. The Gardens’ Holiday Party was the following week which was too close for me. I like to have lots of time to research.

Time to get creative. I pulled out all the cooking magazines and articles with Christmas recipes that I had cut out of newspapers and magazines over the years and voila! I found what I was looking for in the same Woman’s Day Great Holiday Baking Ideas from December 1980 that I had used to made the rum cake recipe. You can tell that this is an old recipe. The nut filling calls for cocktail peanuts and the frosting uses margarine! What I found attractive is that the frosting is coffee (“mocha” in modern parlance) instead of the usual chocolate.

I allotted an entire day to make this recipe but it was faster and easier than I had anticipated. My one complaint about the cake portion (other than the near-death experience in a ShopRite parking lot) is that it uses too many bowls. You need one for the egg whites, one for the egg yolks and a third for the sifted dry ingredients. Three dirty bowls and I hadn’t even made the filling or frosting yet. I don’t have a dishwasher so this is a real hardship.

I skipped the peanuts in the nut filling. I could have substituted something more appropriate but I didn’t want a “crunchy” log. Just as I feared, when I tried to roll up the log after spreading it with the filling, I found that if I rolled it too tightly, the filling was squeezed out of it but if I rolled it too loosely, it wouldn’t hold its shape and unrolled. I compromised, rolling it up somewhere between tightly and loosely resulting in a round log with minimal oozing of the filling.

At this point in the recipe, you are instructed to cut a diagonal slice about 2-inches at its wide side from one end of the rolled cake and reattach it to look like a branch. I’m not good at this artsy stuff. By this time, I had a new monitor and could explore the world of Buche de Noel making. After looking at numerous photos of the finished product, it was clear that the only bakers able to pull this off were professionals. The homemade logs with branches looked, well, homemade.

The frosting was the most difficult part. Two tablespoons of instant coffee is too much. Or maybe it’s just me. I don’t like strong coffee. I’m more of a café au lait person. Then there was the problem of the consistency. Even with 3 ½ cups of confectioners’ sugar, the frosting was a little runny. I tried refrigerating it briefly but then it became too stiff and the texture was grainy.

Eventually, I ended up with a sad, half-rolled-up Yule log covered with both runny and grainy frosting. It looked a little bare so I fished a cheesy decoration from an old wreath out of my Christmas decorations box for a festive touch.

Yes, I know. You’re not laughing at me, you’re laughing with me.

Verdict: Not bad, but I don’t think I’ll be making this one again.

Buche de Noel(source: Woman's Day Great Holiday Baking Ideas, December 1980)

Cake
1 cup cake flour
1/3 cup cocoa
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
¾ teaspoon salt
4 eggs, separated
1 cup sugar
3 tablespoons water
½ cup confectioners’ sugar

Cream Nut Filling
1 ¼ cups heavy cream
½ cup confectioners’ sugar
½ cup finely chopped cocktail peanuts

Coffee Frosting
½ cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons instant coffee
½ cup margarine
3 ½ cups confectioners’ sugar

Grease and line with waxed paper a 15x10x1-inch jelly roll pan; set aside. Sift together cake flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt; set aside. In large bowl of mixer, beat egg whites until stiff but not dry. In small bowl of mixer beat egg holds until thick and lemon colored. Gradually beat sugar and water into yolks. Fold egg yolk mixture into beaten egg whites alternately with flour mixture. Turn into prepared jelly roll pan; spread smoothly. Bake in 350°F oven 15 to 20 minutes or until cake springs back when pressed gently with finger. Immediately turn out onto a towel sprinkled with confectioners’ sugar. Remove waxed paper. While cake is hot, roll up in towel starting from narrow end. Cool thoroughly on wire rack. Unroll cake; remove towel and spread cake with Cream Nut Filling. Roll again. Cut a diagonal slice about 2-inches at its wide side, from one end of tolled cake. Set in place with a little Coffee Frosting on the side of rolled cake to resemble a cut branch. Cover entire cake with remaining Coffee Frosting. Mark with spatula for a bark effect. Refrigerate until serving time. Makes 10 to 12 servings.

Cream Nut Filling
Beat 1 ¼ cups heavy cream with ½ cup confectioners’ sugar just until stiff peaks form. (Do not overbeat.) Fold in ½ cup finely chopped cocktail peanuts.

Coffee Frosting
Heat ½ cup heavy cream with 2 tablespoons instant coffee until coffee dissolves; cool. Cream ½ cup margarine until light and fluffy. Gradually add cooled cream and enough confectioners’ sugar, about 3 ½ cups, to make a spreadable frosting.

Recycle: instant coffee bottle

Compost: eggshells

Christmas Cookie of the Week: Peppermint Bark

2009-12-07T13:12:00.000-05:00

This is a recipe that I bookmarked weeks ago. It seemed easy and fun. When I came up with the idea of “Christmas Cookie of the Week”, it was a perfect candidate.

It is indeed easy. So easy in fact that even I, as artistically challenged as I am, was able to swirl the red color attractively through the melted chips. My only quibble with this recipe is that ½ cup of crushed peppermints is too much. ¼ cup would be plenty.

Just for the record, 5 candy canes equals ½ cup. In case you were wondering. Leftover candy canes are hung on the Christmas tree. Recycling at its finest!

Verdict: Yum!! This one’s a keeper!!

Peppermint Bark(source: McCormick.com)

1 package (12 ounces) white chocolate chips
1 teaspoon peppermint extract (optional)
8 to 10 drops red food color or 8 to 10 drops green food color
½ cup crushed peppermint candies or candy canes

Microwave chocolate chips in large microwavable bowl on HIGH for 1 ½ to 2 minutes or until almost melted, stirring after 1 minute. Stir until chocolate is completely melted and mixture is smooth. Stir in peppermint extract, if desired.

Spread on large foil-lined baking sheet to ¼-inch thickness. Add food color, drop by drop, over mixture. Using a wooden skewer, swirl color through chocolate. Sprinkle with crushed candies, pressing lightly into chocolate with spatula.

Refrigerate about 10 minutes or until firm. Break into irregular pieces to serve. Store in covered container at cool room temperature or in refrigerator up to 5 days.

Recycle: peppermint extract bottle, food color bottle

Christmas Cookie of the Week: Gingerbread Cookies

2009-12-04T13:21:00.000-05:00

Every year, December comes and goes as I attend to the holiday rush of parties, shopping and decorating while trying to keep to my usual schedule of trying one or two new recipes a week. Then January rolls around and I think to myself that I should have baked Christmas cookies. Baking Christmas cookies was not a tradition in my family so it’s not something that I associate with the holidays.

This year, I wanted to break out of my usual holiday routine and try some new things. Christmas cookies immediately came to mind. So please join me in my new tradition of Christmas Cookie of the Week. I will be trying out a new Christmas cookie recipe each week and sharing the results with you here.

My very first recipe is a time-honored one: gingerbread men. I had volunteered to make up a batch for an event at Rutgers Gardens. A long time ago, I had made the gingerbread men recipe from my Betty Crocker cookbook. Last weekend, I decided to try the recipe from the bottle of Grandma’s Molasses. It uses cloves instead of allspice and butter instead of shortening which should result in a richer cookie.

The dough came together well and rolled very easily. My mistake with this recipe was greasing the cookie sheets. Not having any cooking spray on hand, I used shortening. I must have been a little heavy handed because the first batch of cookies spread out all over the cookie sheets. The second batch baked perfectly.

I didn’t decorate the cookies because they were to be decorated by attendees at the HollyDay event. They looked great, but were too soft for their intended use. I was also unhappy with the taste. Too spicy. More ginger snap than ginger cookie. I will go back to my trusty Betty Crocker recipe next year. Look for it in December 2010.

Verdict: Not bad, but I won’t be making these again

Gingerbread Cookies(source: Grandma’s Molasses bottle)

8 tablespoon butter (1 stick)
½ cup sugar
½ cup molasses
1 egg
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon
⅛ teaspoon ground cloves

Beat butter with sugar and molasses. Mix in egg. Sift dry ingredients and mix into wet mixture. Chill in freezer 1 hour or in refrigerator 2 hours. Heat oven to 350°F. Roll out portion of dough ¼” thick on lightly floured board. Chill remaining dough. Cut with cookie cutter, place on greased baking sheets and decorate with raisins, chips or nuts, if desired. Bake 8-10 minutes. Cool.

3 dozen

Recycle: molasses bottle

Compost: eggshells

Dry-Brined Turkey

2009-12-03T13:05:00.000-05:00

A wanted to make chestnut stuffing for our nutty dinner so I found myself for the first time ever cooking an unstuffed turkey. It somehow seemed wrong. An empty turkey. So I surfed the internet for something, anything to put in the turkey.

A recipe in the New York Times (I know, I know) caught my eye. The turkey, a heritage bird, was first brined, then stuffed with thyme, parsley, onions and apples. I had heard about brining, that it was supposed to enhance the moisture in the bird. That seemed a healthier alternative to my usual “baste with butter”.

It struck me as odd, though, that the bird was thoroughly salted and then refrigerated for two days. Isn’t salt usually used in that manner to dry foods as a means of preserving them? I surfed some more and discovered that the term brining usually refers to soaking the bird in salt water and then rinsing it thoroughly. Which makes so much more sense if you plan on eating it in the near future, rather than months from now as famine sets in.

It had only been a few days since the bubbling cauldron of doom so I was in no mood to risk the centerpiece of our meal to an unproven method that was not only counter-intuitive but also the complete opposite of what sensible people are doing and have been successfully doing for years. I also skipped the bizarre cooking temperatures.

Instead, I went straight to the peppering and stuffing of the turkey with the apples (who’da thunkit?), onions, thyme and parsley. And instead of rubbing the butter under the skin, I melted the butter and then used it to baste the turkey as it roasted in my usual (and always successful) 325°F newly-cleaned oven.

Scrumptious is the word that comes to mind. The bird was moist and flavorful. As was the gravy. Next year, I’m going to replace my cheap roasting pan with a real roasting pan that can be used on top of the stove so that I can try deglazing it with white wine. The resulting gravy should be heavenly.

Verdict: Yum!! This one’s a keeper!!

Dry-Brined Turkey(source: New York Times, November 11, 2009)

1 12-16-pound turkey, preferably a heritage or pasture raised bird
½ cup kosher salt, more if needed
1 tablespoon black pepper
10 sprigs fresh thyme
½ bunch flat leaf parsley
2 small onions, halved
2 small apples, cored and halved
½ cup butter
½ cup white wine (optional)

Two days before serving, rinse turkey and pat dry. Rub all over with kosher salt, slipping salt under skin where possible and rubbing some into cavities. Use about 1 tablespoon per four pounds of bird.

Wrap bird in a large plastic bag and place in refrigerator. On second night, turn turkey over. A couple of hours before cooking, remove turkey from bag and pat dry. Place in roasting pan and allow to come to room temperature.

Heat oven to 450°F. Sprinkle half the pepper into main cavity of turkey; add thyme, parsley, half the onions and half the apples. Truss legs with kitchen twine. Put remaining apples and onions in neck opening and tuck neck skin under bird.

Rub butter under breast skin and onto thigh meat. Sprinkle bird with remaining pepper.

Roast for 30 minutes. Remove turkey from oven, reduce heat to 350°F and cover breast of bird and wing tips with foil. Add a cup and a half of water or white wine to bottom of roasting pan and roast bird for another two hours, depending on size; figure 12 minutes a pound for an unstuffed bird. Remove foil in last half-hour so breast browns.

When turkey has roasted for two hours, begin to test for doneness by inserting a meat thermometer (digital is best) into two places in thighs, making sure not to touch bone. It should be at about 160°F.

When roasting is done, tip turkey so interior juices run back into pan. Remove turkey to a separate baking sheet or serving platter, cover with foil and then a damp kitchen towel and allow to rest for at least 30 minutes.

Pour fat and drippings from pan into a measuring cup. Deglaze pan with white wine or broth and pour that into same measuring cup. Fat and drippings can then be used to make gravy.

Yield: About a pound a person.

Recycle: wine bottle

Compost: parsley stems, onion skins, apple cores

Herbed Mashed Potatoes

2009-12-02T13:36:00.001-05:00

A and I agreed, theme or no theme, it’s just not Thanksgiving without mashed potatoes. I could have made the Perfect Mashed Potatoes that I made for our last Thanksgiving but there’s no fun in that. Trying new recipes is what our holiday meals and this blog is all about.

I began a hunt for a recipe for herbed mashed potatoes. There are quite a few of them. Using quite a selection of herbs. My objection to almost all of them is that the herbs are mixed into the potatoes. I didn’t want mashed potatoes with little green bits in them any more than I wanted mashed potatoes with nuts in them. Martha came to my rescue. She offers a recipe where the herbs are infused into the cream (or milk).

There were only two of us dining so I bought 5 medium potatoes rather than the 6 large ones called for. I could always cut down slightly on the butter and cream. Yes, I use cream. It’s Thanksgiving. It only happens once a year. A little cream is not going to kill us. Once I had the potatoes peeled, chunked and merrily boiling away, I chopped the sage, rosemary and thyme and added them to the cream to quietly meld their flavors on a back burner while the more demanding recipes occupied my attention on the front burners.

The next step, of course, is to drain and mash the potatoes with the butter and cream. That meant that I was going to have the dreaded green bits in my potatoes. The solution was simply to strain out the herbs and just add the cream infusion to the potatoes so that you have the flavor without the greenery. A word to the wise: if you lack a strainer as I do, a flour sifter comes in handy.

At this point, with the soup refusing to thicken and the turkey “resting” and taking up valuable counter space, I decided to attempt gravy for the first time in my life under the tutelage of A who made a wonderful gravy at our last Thanksgiving dinner and made it look so easy. Fat was skimmed, pans were re-arranged on the stove, flour was whisked and I completely forgot to add salt, pepper and parsley to the mashed potatoes.

So they were a little bland. But I still found myself humming my way to Scarborough Fair with “…parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme…”.

Verdict: Yum!! This one’s a keeper!!

Herbed Mashed Potatoes(source: Marth Stewart Living, September/October 1991)

6 large white potatoes, peeled and cut into medium chunks
Pinch of salt
1 cup heavy cream or milk
1 tablespoon each of chopped fresh sage, rosemary, and thyme
4 tablespoon (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
Freshly ground pepper to taste

Put potato chunks in a large saucepan over high heat and cover with cold water. Add salt and bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer until potatoes are tender, about 20 minutes.

In a small saucepan over medium heat, combine cream and all the herbs except parsley and bring to a simmer. Turn off heat and cover, allowing herbs to infuse for 15 minutes.

Drain potatoes well and pass through a food mill (or use a masher). Add butter and gradually stir in cream until potatoes have the desired consistency (you may not use all the cream).

Stir in parsley, season with additional salt and pepper, and serve immediately.

Compost: Potato skins, parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme stems

Nut Bread

2009-12-01T13:43:00.000-05:00

It’s really scary when you find a pan in your cupboard that you have no recollection of buying or using. It’s even scarier when it’s the exact size that you need for a recipe you are making for the first time. I found myself in this predicament as I searched through my baking pans to see if I had a second 8 ½-inch loaf pan. I was certain that I didn’t have any 9-inch loaf pans. Certain, that is, until I came across one. Looking all shiny and new, it seemed to mock me as I wracked my brain for an explanation for its presence amongst my well-known and well-worn baking pans. For what recipe had I bought it? Had I ever used it? I still don’t have any answers, but I do have a very nice loaf of nut bread thanks to the mystery pan.

I like dinner rolls with my Thanksgiving meals. Every year I try a different recipe, looking for the perfect roll: light, not too yeasty, not too dense, just dense enough to sop up excess gravy and cranberry sauce. I don’t know of a single dinner roll recipe that contains nuts or has the word nuts in the title. Since I was eschewing the nut theme in favor of mashed potatoes, I decided I would have to do without dinner rolls this Thanksgiving and have nut bread instead.

Much like the butternut squash soup, there are many variations on nut bread. And, like the butternut squash soup, after ten or twenty recipes and careful consideration, I decided on plain, old nut bread. Nothing fancy. No embellishments or chichi ingredients. I dove into my trusty old Betty Crocker cookbook and came up with a nut bread recipe so simple and basic that, with the exception of the nuts, I had all of the ingredients on hand already.

The recipe calls for finely chopped nuts, so I used nut topping. I think next time, I will go with more coarsely chopped nuts. This bread was too “crunchy”. I prefer “chunky”. I was happy that I ended up with one loaf rather than two loaves although nut bread does freeze very easily. It was nice to be able to simply give half to A to take home and enjoy.

Verdict: Yum!! This one’s a keeper!!

Nut Bread(source: Betty Crocker cookbook)

2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
3 ½ teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons salad oil
1 ¼ cups milk
1 egg
1 cup finely chopped nuts

Heat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour 9x5x3-inch loaf pan or two 8 ½x4 ½x2 ½-inch loaf pans. Measure all ingredients into large mixer bowl; beat on medium speed ½ minute, scraping side and bottom of bowl constantly.

Pour into pan(s). Bake 55 to 65 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Remove from pan; cool thoroughly before slicing.

Recycle: salad oil bottle

Compost: eggshell

Pureed Butternut Squash Soup

2009-11-30T13:37:00.000-05:00

In keeping with our “nuts” theme for Thanksgiving, I wanted to try a butternut squash soup recipe completely forgetting that A had already made a wonderful one for our “honey” themed Valentine’s Day dinner.

Before I began my search for a recipe, I had no idea how many variations there were for this soup. Since I didn’t recall A’s soup, I didn’t know what butternut squash tasted like and so found it difficult to choose a recipe. Ginger? Garlic? Curry? In the end, I decided to go with a very simple recipe with minimal seasonings, emphasizing the flavor of the squash.

I have to learn things the hard way. Here’s what I learned about Butternut squash specifically and vegetable based soups in general.

Pumpkin is a squash. If a pumpkin is nearly impossible to cut and peel (think jack-o-lantern), then it stands to reason that all squash are nearly impossible to cut and peel. I have arthritis in my hands. By the time I had finished peeling, seeding and cutting three pounds of butternut squash, my hands were so painful that I was literally sobbing. A, you may have the honor of making all future dishes involving squash.

A food processor is NOT the same as a blender. Yes, it has a plastic bowl with evil little blades at the bottom. The difference, and it is a huge difference, is in the cover. A blender has a cover that seals tightly. A food processor, on the other hand, has a cover that merely clamps tightly to the bowl. Any liquid that reaches the top will be forcibly ejected from the machine by the whirling blades resulting in a soup splattered kitchen. Did I mention that I recently wallpapered my kitchen? Recently, as in the week before Thanksgiving?

Those were my misconceptions. Here is Martha’s misconception. Admittedly, I wasn’t able to puree the soup completely and a certain amount did wind up decorating my walls, floor, countertop and cabinets, but I still am not sure why she thought the resulting soup would be so thick that it would need to be thinned with a little water. My soup was too watery.

Thankfully, I had made it first before tackling the mashed potatoes and gravy. My reasoning was that it could always be reheated before being served. Instead, I left it simmering and cooking down on a backburner while I attended to the rest of the dinner. A was kind enough to keep an eye on it for me, stirring and checking the consistency.

Despite the best efforts of both Wooden Spoon cooks, this soup was too thin. It also needed more seasonings or a different oil. The taste of the olive oil almost overpowered the taste of the squash.

Verdict: What was Martha thinking???

Pureed Butternut Squash Soup(Source: Everyday Food January/February 2008)

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, coarsely chopped
Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper
3 pounds butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cut into 1-inch chunks
1 can (14 ½ ounces) reduced-sodium chicken broth
1 to 3 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

In a large Dutch oven or pot, heat oil over medium heat. Add onion. Season with salt; stirring occasionally, until softened, 5 to 7 minutes.

Add squash, broth, and enough water (4 to 5 cups) to cover. Bring to a boil; reduce heat to medium, and simmer until squash is tender, about 20 minutes.

Using a blender or an immersion blender, puree broth and vegetables until smooth. If using a blender, work in batches and fill only halfway, allowing heat to escape: remove cap from hole in lid, cover lid firmly with a dish towel, and blend. Transfer to a clean pot as you work. Adjust soup’s consistency with a little water if necessary. Season with salt, pepper, and lemon juice.

Recycle: olive oil bottle, chicken broth can

Compost: onion skin, squash seeds and skin

The Wooden Spoon Cooks Go Nuts!

2009-11-26T23:18:00.011-05:00

Pureed Butternut Squash Soup

Cranberry-Orange Relish with Walnuts

Baked Acorn Squash

Nut Bread

Herbed Mashed Potatoes

Chestnut Stuffing

Dry-Brined Turkey

Pecan Pie

A and I had so much fun doing a themed Valentine’s Day Dinner that we decided to cook a themed Thanksgiving Dinner. A suggested “nuts” which is appropriate for the season as well as our state of mind. We dove into cookbooks and surfed the net looking for dishes with nuts as ingredients and/or “nuts” in their title. Stay tuned for the recipes and our reviews.

We hope that you enjoy our Nutty Thanks giving as much as we did.

Maple Pear Upside-Down Cake

2009-11-22T23:57:00.000-05:00

It is absolutely true that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. This old dog went all Pavlov when she saw a recipe for a pear upside-down cake rather than the more usual pineapple upside-down cake. She completely ignored that (1) the recipe was featured in the New York Times and (2) not a single recipe from that illustrious publication has ever worked for her. And do you know why she ignored past experience? Because (everyone say it with me) this time it will be different.

Except that it wasn’t. Making matters worse, the fallout from this disaster may have adverse consequences on Thanksgiving. I am keeping my ~~paws~~ fingers crossed.

I am unsure of the variety of pears that I purchased. They weren’t labeled. They were, however, the biggest darn pears that I have ever seen. I bought four as specified in the recipe, but only needed half that many to affect the overlapping circle on the top of the cake.

Cooking the maple syrup and brown sugar topping was not a problem. While it was cooling, I made the cake batter. Which, when finished, bore a striking resemblance to BisQuick. My problems began when I poured the brown sugar maple syrup mixture into the cake pan. It seemed like a lot. But I forged ahead confident that the chefs behind the recipe in their infinite wisdom, knew what they were doing.

Pear slices were arranged in an attractive circle, batter was spooned into the pan and then carefully spread to cover the pears. The pan was slid into the oven and the timer set for 45 minutes. The trouble began at the twenty minute mark when the first eruption of brown sugar/maple syrup escaped from the pan and landed on the bottom of the oven where it sizzled into a sticky, blackened mess. As the minutes ticked by, the eruptions grew more frequent, the sizzling almost constant. Thirty minutes in, smoke was billowing out of the stove as the boiling mixture intended as a delicate syrup for the pears turned my oven into a bubbling cauldron of burning sugar.

I made the decision to remove the cake early rather than risk burning down my house. Repeat after me: The motto of the New York Times is “All The News That’s Fit to Print” NOT “All The Recipes Fit to Print”. If there is any doubt in your mind, I invite you to take a look into my blackened and still smoking oven.

Normally, my oven is pretty clean. Clean enough that I feel confident in baking my Thanksgiving pies and breads and then roasting the turkey. The following day, while everyone else is out bargain-hunting, I am on my knees in the kitchen cleaning my oven sure in the knowledge that I won’t need to clean it again until after the Christmas roast beef.

This year, thanks to the New York Times (note to self: “All The NEWS That’s Fit to Print”), I will be cleaning my oven twice in one week. No matter how carefully I rinse, it always smells of oven cleaner afterwards which leads me to wonder how that acrid aroma will affect the turkey.

In case you’re still wondering, the much maligned Maple Pear Upside-Down Cake was delicious. I will be making it again, but with a lot less brown sugar and maple syrup and definitely not a few days before Thanksgiving.

Verdict: Needs a Do-Over

Maple Pear Upside-Down Cake(source: The New York Times, November 11, 2009)

11 tablespoons butter
¾ cup maple syrup
¼ cup packed brown sugar
3 to 4 pears, peeled, cored and thinly sliced
¾ cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 large eggs
1 ½ cups flour
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cup milk

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Melt 3 tablespoons butter in a small pan over medium heat; add maple syrup and brown sugar and cook, stirring, until sugar dissolves. Bring to a boil and cook for another 2 minutes; remove from heat and set aside. When mixture has cooled a bit, pour it into a 9-inch baking pan and arrange pear slices n an overlapping circle on top.

With a handheld or standing mixer, beat remaining 8 tablespoons butter and the sugar until light and fluffy. Add vanilla and eggs, one egg at a time, continuing to mix until smooth. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder and salt.

Add flour mixture to butter mixture in three batches, alternating with milk; do not overmix. Carefully spread batter over pears, using a spatula to make sure it is evenly distributed. Bake until top of cake is golden brown and edges begin to pull away from sides of pan, about 45 to 50 minutes; a toothpick inserted into center should come out clean. Let cake cool for 5 minutes.

Run a knife around edge of pan; put a plate on top of cake and carefully flip it so plate is on bottom and pan is on top. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Yield: 8 to 10 servings.

Recycle: maple syrup bottle, vanilla bottle

Compost: pear peels and cores, eggshells

Linguine Fra Diavolo

2009-11-14T23:13:00.001-05:00

Have you ever lost a recipe? I have. More than once. My biggest loss was my favorite strawberry cake recipe. Yellow layers with sliced strawberries as filling, covered with a whipped cream frosting. My mouth waters just thinking about it. It disappeared during the move to my current house.

Once I had a computer, I was determined to never lose another recipe and carefully typed all of them into folders. But I hadn’t counted on a home computer, a work computer and flash drives. Despite my best efforts to centralize my file keeping, I still managed to lose track of recipes.
The latest recipe to “disappear” on me was this one. When I went to make it a year ago, I discovered that I couldn’t locate it. I hastily did some Googling and came up with an acceptable substitute which turned out to be rather good.

Last week, I came across it on my office computer. I transferred it to my flash drive AND printed it out. No way that I was going to lose it again.

Shrimp was on sale this week so it was a good time to try this version. I was also eager to use surimi, something I had never tried. The package left me a little confused. It said “imitation crab meat” and underneath that “wild caught”. How do you catch a fake crab?

My only criticism of this recipe is that either I should chop my onions into smaller pieces or they should be sautéed longer than 8 minutes. They weren’t cooked enough. I used the entire 2 pound package of shrimp which was too much. But I love shrimp and I’ve never come across any recipes that call for ¾ pound of shrimp. The surimi was difficult to shred. I have to work on that.

Other than that, it was absolutely delicious.

Verdict: Yum!! This one’s a keeper!!

Linguine Fra Diavolo(source: Familycircle.com)

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, sliced
1 can (28 ounces) whole tomatoes
1 can (8 ounces) tomato sauce
1 teaspoon salt
¾ teaspoon red-pepper flakes
1 pound dried linguine
1 ¼ pounds cleaned medium-size shrimp
½ pound surimi (imitation crab), shredded
¼ cup fresh basil, in strips

Heat oil in large skillet over medium heat. Add onion and garlic; sauté 8 minutes or until softened, without letting garlic brown.

Add tomatoes, tomato sauce, salt and pepper flakes. Bring to a simmer, breaking up tomato with wooden spoon; cook over medium heat 10 minutes.

While sauce is simmering, cook linguine following package directions. Drain.

Stir shrimp into sauce; cook 3 to 4 minutes or until shrimp is cooked through.

Stir in surimi; heat through, about 1 minute.

Toss linguine with shrimp sauce. Garnish with basil.

Recycle: tomato cans

Compost: onion skins, garlic skins

Fettuccine Alfredo

2009-11-07T23:18:00.002-05:00

As I previously mentioned, I was raised on meat and potatoes. Steaks, chops, boiled chicken legs and the ubiquitous mashed potatoes smothered in butter and gravy. For most of my childhood, the only pasta I knew was macaroni and cheese.

By the late 60's, prepared foods were more prevalent and cheaper and spaghetti was added to our diet. It came in a box with a foil pouch of seasonings to which was added a can of tomato paste and water. It was a welcome respite from the endless cycle of meat and potatoes.

When I moved out of my parents’ house, I was shocked at the infinite variety of food and flavors. I had difficulty ordering food in restaurants because I didn’t know what most of dishes were and was too ashamed to admit it. So I would order whatever sounded the most exotic to me on the menu.

One evening, it was Fettuccine Alfredo. I had no idea what I was ordering beyond the fact that it was pasta and it was Italian. My ignorance was such that I didn’t know that “Alfredo” was a sauce. So you can imagine my surprise when my pasta arrived covered with a white sauce instead of the expected tomato sauce. Even worse, the sauce was made with a lot of eggs that didn’t taste like they were cooked properly. They were raw and slimy. My dining companion, assured me that my dish had been made and cooked properly.

It was one of the worst meals I had ever eaten. The memory of that dish was so horrific, that I buried it in the remotest recesses of my memory.

Now fast forward about fifteen years. I had had years of cooking for a fussy eater. So fussy in fact, that our diet was restricted to half a dozen or fewer dishes. Standing in the pasta aisle at the supermarket, I realized that I had reached the point where I just couldn’t face another dinner of spaghetti and Ragu sauce. A box of fettuccine with a recipe for Fettuccine Alfredo on the side caught my eye. It sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place it. More importantly, would my daughter eat flat pasta covered in a white sauce? And how did I know that Alfredo was a white sauce?

Back home in my kitchen, with the pasta merrily boiling and my white sauce prepared, the unwelcome answer hit me as I poured the beaten eggs into the pan. I panicked. If I wasn’t willing to eat slimy, half-cooked eggs, there was no way that my daughter would either. There had to be something I could do salvage dinner. I stirred and stirred and thought and thought and stirred some more. Just as I was about to dump dinner and order Chinese, a miracle happened: the eggs cooked. I found myself stirring something akin to scrambled eggs.

I drained the pasta, added it to the “sauce” and found myself with an edible dish. Not at all authentic, but my picky offspring was willing to eat it and so was I. It has become one of those recipes that I make when I am in a hurry or too tired to fuss. It is so flexible that it can be a main dish or a side dish.

Just for the record, I’ve never ordered Fettuccine Alfredo in a restaurant again since that disastrous meal decades ago.

Verdict: Yum!! This one’s a keeper!!

Fettuccine Alfredo(source: Ronzoni Fettuccine box)

16 oz. (1 package) Fettuccine
½ cup (1 stick) butter or margarine
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 cup whipping cream
4 eggs

Cook pasta in boiling salted water for 15 minutes. Meanwhile, in a saucepan over medium heat, melt butter; blend in cheese. Stir in whipping cream; heat almost to boiling, stirring constantly with a whisk. Place eggs in a small bowl; beat slightly. Stir a small amount of hot cream mixture into egg mixture; pour egg mixture into saucepan. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly with whisk until thoroughly heated, about 5 minutes. Tossed cooked, drained pasta and sauce. Serve immediately.

6 servings

Compost: eggshells

Soft & Chewy Chocolate Drops

2009-11-04T13:22:00.000-05:00

In all fairness, I really should make these cookies again before reviewing the recipe. I did everything possible wrong so it is no surprise that they are only “average”. I have no excuse except that I was very busy and trying to take shortcuts.

The cookie dough is supposed to be refrigerated for an hour. I left it in the fridge overnight. At that point, the dough was so hard, that it was impossible to roll into balls. I didn’t have time for it reach room temperature, so I just mooshed it into ball-like shapes, larger than the recommended one inch and baked them.

Then I froze them. There was no time to make frosting and frost the cookies, so into the freezer they went for a few days. When I finally found the time to make the glaze, I ended up with way more than I needed, even if I had made five dozen cookies.

I also made the mistake of reading the ingredients on the Cool Whip label. I had nightmares for a few nights after. It’s been years since I ate anything that I couldn’t pronounce.

Here’s a handy hint. It doesn’t say so in the directions, but placed the frosted cookies on wax paper while the frosting was setting on them. They don’t stick to the wax paper and clean up is a breeze, especially if any of the frosting has dripped.

When all was said and done, I wasn’t enthusiastic about the taste. That may have had something to do with the cheap baking chocolate I used. I should have invested in better chocolate for a better taste.

Verdict: Needs a Do-Over

Soft & Chewy Chocolate Drops(source: BAKER’S unsweetened Baking Chocolate box)

4 oz. unsweetened chocolate
¾ cup (1 ½ sticks) butter
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 ½ cups flour

Glaze
1 tub (8 oz.) Frozen Cool Whip Whipped Topping
6 oz. semi-sweet chocolate

Preheat oven to 350°. Microwave unsweetened chocolate and butter in large microwavable bowl on high 2 min. or until butter is melted. Stir until chocolate is completely melted. Add sugar; mix well. Blend in eggs and vanilla. Add flour; mix well. Cover and refrigerate 1 or until dough is easy to handle.

Shape dough into 1-inch balls; place 2 inches apart, on greased baking sheets.

Bake 8 min. or just until set. (Do not overbake.) Let stand on baking sheet 1 min; transfer to wire racks. Cool completely.

Glaze: Place frozen whipped topping and semi-sweet chocolate in microwavable bowl. Microwave on high 1 ½ min. or until chocolate is completely melted and mixture is shiny and smooth, stirring after 1 min. Let stand 15 min. to thicken. Spread over cookies. Let stand until glaze is set.

Makes 5 doz. or 30 servings, two cookies each.

Recycle: vanilla bottle

Compost: eggshells

Red Beans and Rice

2009-10-31T23:06:00.000-04:00

I was raised on steak and potatoes. There was always a big slab of meat, usually beef, on our plates accompanied by a small mountain of mashed potatoes smothered in butter and gravy. That was in the 60’s. These days, we know that meat should be eaten sparingly so I’ve been trying to eat more vegetables and seafood.

When I looked into recipes for red beans and rice, I was surprised to find that there were many variations. I decided I should keep it simple for my first attempt and chose a recipe from A’s favorite site, Epicurious. It was billed as simple and easy and could be made with ingredients you already have on hand. True. All I had to buy were the beans and the tomato sauce.

As promised, this is a simple dish to make. It smelled great while it was cooking, but lacked any real flavor when I tasted it. It has heat from the spices and, but no distinctive flavor. It just tasted like beans with a kick. I think I will try some of those variations (Cuban, Cajun, etc) in hopes of finding a recipe with a unique taste.

Verdict: Not bad, but I won’t be making this again.

Red Beans and Rice(source: Epicurious July 2003)

2 tablespoons olive oil
2 medium onions, finely diced
2 large garlic cloves, minced
1 green pepper, finely diced
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 teaspoon paprika
1 cup tomato sauce
¼ cup water
A few dashes hot sauce (such as Tabasco)
2 (15-ounce) cans kidney beans, rinsed well in a strainer
4 cups hot cooked rice (from 1 cup raw rice
Sour cream (optional)

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onions, garlic, and green pepper, and sauté until the pepper is very tender, about 10 minutes.

Sprinkle in the chili powder and paprika, and cook 30 seconds. Mix in the tomato sauce, water, hot sauce, and kidney beans, and simmer about 10 minutes, or until the mixture is hot and fragrant. Serve over rice with a small spoonful of sour cream on top, if desired.

Tip: To give the beans a smoky flavor you can add 1 small chipotle pepper in adobo sauce. Mince it on a small plate with 2 knives before adding it to the beans. Omit the hot sauce.

Recycle: olive oil bottle, Tabasco sauce bottle, kidney beans cans, tomato sauce can

Compost: onion skins, garlic skins, pepper seeds and rind

Lentil Soup

2009-10-24T23:22:00.001-04:00

A cooler than normal summer is being followed by a warmer than normal autumn. Yesterday, a cold front with rain moved in and we’ve been getting a taste of more normal damp, chilly autumn weather. Definitely soup weather.

I’ve been wanting to expand my soup repertoire beyond my usual cream of mushroom, French onion and potato soup standbys. Last year, I added chicken soup. This year, I’m adding Lentil Soup. The recipe is straight from the Goya dry lentils package. I had cut it out when I bought lentils to make I don't remember what. It sounded quick and easy.

My only criticism of the directions is that they don’t specify how long you should simmer the soup. “…until lentils are tender and soup gets thick” is a little vague. A guesstimate would have been nice. A little research on the internet suggested 45 minutes to an hour. I went with an hour.

I chose to make this with ham, not because I happen to have ham in the house but because I couldn’t imagine lentil soup with sausage. And the recipe didn’t specify what kind of sausage. Maybe kielbasa? I also chose chicken over beef bouillon, again, a personal preference. When you make this, go easy on the salt and pepper. The ham provided plenty of salt, I probably didn’t have to add any and I admit to being a little heavy handed with the pepper.

Despite my ineptitude with the seasonings, this soup was delicious and even better the second day.

Verdict: Yum!! This one’s a keeper!!

Lentil Soup(source: Goya Dry Lentils package)

½ lb. dry lentils
2 Tbsp. olive oil
¼ lb. smoked ham or sausage
1 small onion, chopped
1 stalk celery, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 chicken or beef bouillon
4 cups water
Salt and pepper to taste

Sort and rinse lentils. In a medium saucepan, heat oil. Stir in ham, onion, celery and garlic until tender. Add lentils and remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer until lentils are tender and soup gets thick. Add more hot water if necessary.

Serves 4.

Recycle: olive oil bottle
Compost: onion skins, celery leaves, garlic skins

Alexis’s Brown Sugar Chocolate Chip Cookies

2009-10-23T13:06:00.001-04:00

I fell for the hype. Twice. There was an article on Yahoo about the “best” chocolate chips and the “best” chocolate chip cookie recipes. I’ve been making Tollhouse cookies since I was a child. As an adult, I’m always trying, only to be disappointed by, other chocolate chip cookie recipes. But, hey, these are “the best” recipes.

There was the ubiquitous New York Times recipe, the supposedly “secret” Neiman Marcus recipe, a couple of famous TV chef recipes and a Martha Stewart recipe. From her Entertaining book. Supposedly the recipe has worked perfectly for 25 years. Let me repeat that so that we are all clear on this: Alexis’s Brown Sugar Chocolate Chip Cookies have worked perfectly for 25 years.

Like all of Martha’s “best” recipes, this one goes overboard on one key ingredient, in this case, butter. The recipe calls for one pound unsalted butter. Egads!! The recipe doesn’t say so, but I used the usual “softened” butter. Balancing that is a dearth of chocolate chips. Only 1½ cups. In my humble opinion, the minimum should be 2 cups, the whole 12 ounce bag instead of ¾ of it. And by the way, what are “real chocolate chips”? I didn’t realize that there were fake ones.

I liked that the dry ingredients are sifted. It usually makes for a lighter result. I’m not sure why with an entire pound of butter, Martha feels that the cookie sheets need to be greased. I have never greased my cookie sheets when making chocolate chip cookies with a lot less butter. I went with experience and didn’t grease them. I was also unhappy with the amount of batter for each cookie. Two to three tablespoons seemed way too much. And which is it? Two or three? There’s a big difference. I compromised at 2 ½ tablespoons. Sure enough, it was waaaaay too much. This is what the first batch looked like:

They spread out all over the cookie sheet. Can you imagine if I HAD greased the cookie sheet? They would have continued spreading off the sheet and all over my oven. According to the reverential article accompanying this recipe, these cookies have a “…crispy-at-the-edges/chewy-in-the –middle texture.” You will note that in the above photo, while the edges could possibly be described as “crispy”, there is no way that the uncooked batter in the middle could be described as “chewy”.

But we weren’t finished having fun yet. Here’s what happened when I attempted to remove the cookies from the cookie sheet:

An ooey-gooey mess. For the next batch, I reduced the batter for each cookie to a more normal 1 tablespoon and was rewarded with the promised 4 inch “crispy-at-the-edges/chewy-in-the-middle texture”. Look closely at the photo below. Do you see any chocolate chips? I see almost none. For me, a chocolate chip cookie is as much about the chocolate chips as it is about the cookie.

I should confess that the worshipful author of the accompanying article was correct about the taste. “They do not resemble Tollhouse-style cookies in the slightest. They are much more buttery….” She’s right. They were good. We will just have to disagree about the recipe itself. It may have worked for 25 years in her kitchen, but it doesn’t work in mine.

Verdict: What was Martha thinking?

Alexis’s Brown-Sugar Chocolate Chip Cookies(source: Martha Stewart Entertaining)

1 pound (4 sticks) unsalted butter
3 cups brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
4 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 ½ teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 ½ cups real chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375°F.

Cream butter until smooth; add sugars. Beat in eggs and vanilla.

Sift flour, salt, and baking soda and beat into above mixture. Add chocolate chips. Drop 2-3 tablespoons of batter onto greased baking sheet, 2 inches apart. Bake 8 minutes.

Remove from pans and cool on racks.

Note; if cookies become hard while still on the baking sheet, put sheet back into the oven for a few seconds to soften them for easy removal.

Recycle: vanilla bottle

Compost: eggshells

Indian-Spiced Shrimp

2009-10-21T13:09:00.003-04:00

This is a recipe that I “stockpiled” over the summer. I saw it on Yahoo (originally from Epicurious), loved it and bookmarked it for trial during cooler weather. I liked it so much that, when I ran into “A” at a party last month, I told her that I had the perfect recipe for the shrimp that has been in my freezer for too long. The recipe was called …um…um…some kind of Indian dish. I thought I was having a Senior Moment.

I hopped on my computer as soon as I got home and pulled up the recipe. Phew! No Senior Moment. I couldn’t recall the name because it’s not really “named”, just described as “Indian-spiced”. As I was making out my shopping list, I liked this recipe even more. Not only did I already have the shrimp, albeit a little frost bitten, I also had all of the spices. I’m going to have to check back on this blog to see what I have been cooking that I have coriander and turmeric on hand.

The prep time on this is estimated at 40 minutes which is accurate. Peeling and deveining the shrimp took up most of that time. I thought that chopping the tomatoes would take more time than it did and it might have if I had peeled them first. I didn’t have any fresh ginger so I substituted ground ginger at a ratio of 1 to 3. In this case it meant using ⅓ teaspoon of ground ginger instead of 1 teaspoon fresh ginger.

Once you get past all of the peeling and chopping, this is a quick and easy recipe. It smelled heavenly as it was cooking, although it’s probably a good thing that my windows are all closed. I’m not sure how my neighbors feel about Indian food. People who don’t like it often complain of the smell when someone else is cooking it.

The taste, on the other hand, was only so-so. I just couldn’t work up any enthusiasm for it. It tasted okay, not great, just okay. Perhaps I just don’t care much for this particular combination of spices.

Verdict: No bad, but I probably won’t be making this again.

Indian-Spiced Shrimp(source: Epicurious)

1 medium onion, halved lengthwise, then thinly sliced lengthwise
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tablespoon minced fresh jalapeno, including seeds
1 clove garlic, minced
1 teaspoon finely grated peeled fresh ginger
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
¾ teaspoon salt
⅛ teaspoon turmeric (optional)
1 pound tomatoes, cut into ½-inch pieces
1 pound large shrimp in shell (21 to 25 per lb), peeled and deveined
½ cup loosely packed fresh cilantro leaves, chopped if desired

Cook onion in oil in a 12-inch heavy skillet over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until golden, 6 to 8 minutes. Add jalapeno, garlic, and ginger and cook, stirring, until jalapeno, is softened and garlic is golden, about 1 minute. Add cumin, coriander, salt, and turmeric (if using) and cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add tomatoes and cook, stirring occasionally, until tomatoes break down and sauce is thickened, 3 to 5 minutes.

Add shrimp and cook, turning occasionally, until just cooked through, about 3 minutes. Remove skillet from heat and stir in half of cilantro. Serve sprinkled with remaining cilantro.

Recycle: Vegetable oil bottle, spice bottles

Compost: onion skin, jalapeno stem, garlic skin, ginger peels, tomatoes skins, cilantro stems

Indian Spiced Carrot Soup

2009-10-18T22:03:00.003-04:00

My garden produced a good crop of carrots this year, and it’s cooled down enough now that the idea of carrot soup was appealing. So I went looking for a recipe, and found one on epicurious.com for a soup with Indian spices. I like Indian food, and I didn’t want a recipe that was too sweet, so this sounded like a good idea.

Okay, so I made some changes to the spices. I’m out of curry powder, so used Garam Masala powder instead. I also used powdered ginger rather than fresh. Since I don’t have a spice mill or coffee grinder, I used ground coriander seeds and unground mustard seed. But I did use fresh limes. I know better than to mess with that.

The recipe’s intention, apparently, was that you should blend everything to a fine puree. It was getting late and I was in kind of a hurry, so I didn’t blend it that finely. I liked this; it gave an interesting texture to the soup.

As for the color – I grew purple carrots in my garden this year, and one or two of them made it into the soup. I was alarmed at first, when the cooking liquid turned an unappealing brown color (the purple compounds are water-soluble, so they leach out during cooking). But then when I added the lime juice, the acidity turned the soup reddish. The final result was a light tomato-y color. Definitely better than muddy brown. I wonder what it would look like if I used all purple carrots…

As for the flavor – it’s interesting, but I didn’t care for it. Some of the people who posted comments on the original website said they doubled the amounts of the spices. I’m not sure that would help. It’s not that the flavor was weak, just that I didn’t like it all that much. I used the juice of two fresh limes, and maybe that was a bit much.

So, I’ll continue searching for a good carrot soup recipe…

Verdict: Not bad, but I don't think I'll be making it again.

Indian Spiced Carrot Soup with Ginger
(source: www.epicurious.com)

1 teaspoon coriander seeds
1/2 teaspoon yellow mustard seeds
3 tablespoons peanut oil
1/2 teaspoon curry powder (preferably Madras)
1 tablespoon minced peeled fresh ginger
2 cups chopped onions
1 1/2 pounds carrots, peeled, thinly sliced into rounds (about 4 cups)
1 1/2 teaspoons finely grated lime peel
5 cups (or more) low-salt chicken broth or vegetable broth
2 teaspoons fresh lime juice
Plain yogurt (for garnish)

Grind coriander and mustard seeds in spice mill to fine powder. Heat oil in heavy large pot over medium-high heat. Add ground seeds and curry powder; stir 1 minute. Add ginger; stir 1 minute. Add next 3 ingredients. Sprinkle with salt and pepper; sauté until onions begin to soften, about 3 minutes. Add 5 cups broth; bring to boil. Reduce heat to medium-low; simmer uncovered until carrots are tender, about 30 minutes. Cool slightly. Working in batches, puree in blender until smooth. Return soup to pot. Add more broth by 1/4 cupfuls if too thick. Stir in lime juice; season with salt and pepper. DO AHEAD: Can be made 1 day ahead. Cool slightly. Chill uncovered until cold, then cover and keep chilled. Rewarm before serving.

Ladle soup into bowls. Garnish with yogurt and serve.

Recycle: oil bottle, broth can, yogurt tub

Compost: ginger, onion, and carrot peels

Dinette Cake with Chocolate Butter Frosting

2009-10-14T23:17:00.000-04:00

When I was a child, the custom in our family was that the Birthday Boy or Girl chose the dinner menu and the birthday cake. My mother wasn’t much of a baker, so most birthday cakes were made from mixes. Except mine. I always requested the one cake that she made from scratch. She called it a “One Egg Cake”. The recipe had been cut out of a newspaper or magazine years before and carefully saved . . . I just realized that I don’t know where she kept it.

It was a plain vanilla cake made in a square 8x8 or 9x9 pan and frosted with chocolate butter frosting. Cakes may have come from boxes, but frostings were always homemade. Chocolate butter or vanilla butter, straight out of my mother’s old Betty Crocker cookbook.

In my teens, disaster struck. The precious One Egg Cake recipe disappeared. We searched high and low but it was never seen again. I began a fruitless quest to find a substitute. As an adult, when I purchased my own Betty Crocker cookbook, one of the first recipes that I tried was “Dinette Cake” which called for one egg and was made in a square 8x8 or 9x9 pan. It was close, but not the cake from my childhood. Luckily, my newer edition Betty Crocker cookbook still had the same chocolate and vanilla butter frostings recipes.

It may not be quite the same, but at least I no longer have to wait until my birthday to have a one egg cake frosted with chocolate butter frosting.
Verdict: Yum!! These are keepers!!

Dinette Cake(source: Betty Crocker)

1 ½ cups cake flour or 1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
¾ cup milk
⅓ cup shortening
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla

Heat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour square pan, 8x8x2 or 9x9x2 inches. Measure all ingredients into large mixer bowl. Blend ½ minute on low speed, scraping bowl constantly. Beat 3 minutes high speed, scraping bowl occasionally. Pour into pan.

Bake 35 to 40 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool.

Chocolate Butter Frosting(source: Betty Crocker)

⅓ cup soft butter or margarine
2 ounces melted unsweetened chocolate (cool)
2 cups confectioners’ sugar
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla
About 2 tablespoons milk

Mix thoroughly butter and cooled chocolate. Blend in sugar. Stir in vanilla and milk; beat until frosting is smooth and of spreading consistency.

Fills and frosts two 8- or 9-inchy layers or frosts a 13x9-inch cake.

To fill and frost three 8-inch layers, use ½ cup soft butter or margarine, 3 ounces melted unsweetened chocolate (cool), 3 cups confectioners’ sugar, 2 teaspoons vanilla and about 3 tablespoons milk.

Recycle: milk bottle, vanilla bottle
Compost: eggshell

Chicken or Pork Fried Rice

2009-10-10T19:07:00.002-04:00

I was feeling under the weather last weekend, no energy to cook, so I went with one of my default options: takeout Chinese. The local Chinese restaurant is nothing special, just convenient. The garlic shrimp was yummy, but the fried rice left something to be desired. I like mine much better.

This is one of those recipes that I’ve been cooking for years but whose origins are lost in the mists of time. I vaguely remember finding it in a magazine. My first concrete memory is passing it along to a former co-worker who had made a pork roast and was looking for some way to use the leftovers. I almost never eat pork, so I have always made this recipe with chicken.

I use all of the ingredients but consider the amounts as merely suggestions. I buy a package of bean sprouts and use it all. Ditto the green onions. I chop up the whole bunch and put it in. The smallest package of mushrooms that I have ever found is 4 ounces. Again, I use the entire package. Whatever amount of chicken I have on hand is the amount that I use. Today, I bought a package of chicken tenders and cut them into bite sized pieces. I use Japanese sushi rice because that is what I keep in stock. I make 4 cups instead of the 3 cups called for in the recipe to balance the increased amounts of the rest of the components.

Perhaps it is that final dash of white pepper that I find so satisfying, but I have yet to eat any restaurant made fried rice that even comes close to this.

Verdict: Yum!! This one’s a keeper!!

Chicken or Pork Fried Rice(source:unknown)

1 cup bean sprouts
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
3 ounces mushrooms, sliced (1 cup)
3 cups cold cooked regular long grain rice
1 cup cut-up cooked chicken or pork
2 tablespoons sliced green onions
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
2 large eggs, slightly beaten
3 tablespoons soy sauce
Dash of white pepper

Rinse bean sprouts with cold water; drain.

Heat 1 tablespoon oil in 10-inch skillet over medium heat; rotate skillet until oil covers bottom. Cook mushrooms in oil about 1 minute, stirring frequently, until coated.

Add bean sprouts, rice, chicken and onions. Cook over medium heat about 5 minutes, stirring and breaking up rice, until hot.

Push rice mixture to side of skillet. Add 1 tablespoon oil to other side of skillet. Cook eggs in oil over medium heat, stirring constantly, until eggs are thickened throughout but still moist. Stir eggs into rice mixture. Stir in soy sauce and white pepper.

Recycle: vegetable oil bottle, soy sauce bottle
Compost: scallion stems, eggshells

Fudgy Coconut Cookies

2009-09-27T23:04:00.000-04:00

My printer at home is broken. Canon wants me to ship it back to them so that they can repair it. I’m not sure that it’s worth it. Do I really need a printer? For weeks now, any time I needed to print something, I would load it on to my flash drive, take it to work and print my documents there. This works very well as long as one remembers to save what one needs to ye olde flash drive.

Like a cookie recipe. Today, I found myself trying to bake a brand new cookie recipe with the recipe on the computer screen at one end of the house and my kitchen at the other end of the house. I would memorize a few ingredients and their amounts and then dash down the hall to the kitchen. Sometimes I would forget the amount and have to make a second trip. Back and forth. Back and forth.

Eventually, I had all of the ingredients in all of their correct amounts added in the correct order, and properly mixed. The first batch was in the oven, the second on another cookie sheet waiting their turn when I looked up and saw the butter. The quarter cup of butter that I had put out a few hours before to soften. The butter that I had completely forgotten about and somehow missed while sprinting between computer and kitchen.

Much like the printer, I decided it wasn’t worth it to either try to add it the remaining batter or to start all over again. I didn’t think that it would matter much whether the butter was in it or not because I didn’t think that I was going to like this recipe. I don’t like chocolate and brown sugar, something I apparently overlooked upon my initial reading of this recipe.

I never hesitate to admit when I am wrong and I was definitely wrong about these cookies. They were billed as “inspired by a Mounds candy bar”, although I wouldn’t agree with the comparison. They turned out to be great without the butter. My only complaint is that the coconut probably should be in smaller pieces. I can’t wait to try them again, this time including the butter.

Verdict: Yum!! This one’s a keeper

Fudgy Coconut Cookies(Source: Cooking Club of America)

12 oz. semisweet chocolate, chopped
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup butter, softened
2 eggs, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup sweetened flaked coconut
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Heat oven to 350°F. Place chopped chocolate in microwave-safe bowl; microwave on medium 3 to 5 minutes or until almost melted. Stir until smooth. Cool slightly. Stir in brown sugar, butter, eggs and vanilla until smooth.

In small bowl, stir together flour and baking powder; stir into chocolate mixture. Stir in coconut and chocolate chips. Drop heaping tablespoonfuls of batter onto baking sheets.

Bake, 1 sheet at a time, 12 to 15 minutes or until cookies are set. (Be careful not to burn cookies because batter is dark.) Place baking sheet on wire rack; cool completely.

18 cookies

Recycle: vanilla bottle
Compost: eggshells

Quick and Easy Chili in Homemade Bread Bowls

2009-09-21T19:25:00.002-04:00

I’ve mentioned before that I find recipes in the unlikeliest places. This time I was reading Gardener News, a periodical aimed at gardeners obviously. But it also features recipes appropriate to the season. For the September edition, a chili recipe was offered.

I’ve been in search of the perfect chili recipe for years. Most of the recipes I’ve tried are called chili because they have chili powder in them. They don’t even come close to my idea of chili. And the few chili recipes that did come close, still lacked “something”.

This recipe caught my eye because it calls for a jalapeno pepper and Cayenne pepper. I love spicy food! It also contains half of a bell pepper which is cooked along with the onion before adding the rest of the ingredients. Most recipes use a whole bell pepper and cook it and the onion with everything else resulting in a chili with a lot of crunchy peppers and onions. I don’t like my chili crunchy.

I didn’t make the bread bowls. I’ve been cutting down on the amount of bread I eat. I even use wraps for my sandwiches. I used tomato juice instead of V-8 Juice. I thought that the chili would probably be spicy enough without the added spices in the V-8. I was little hesitant about using olive oil. I just don’t care for the taste. Usually I substitute vegetable oil. In this case I went with the olive oil because the intense spices would (hopefully) cover the taste of the olive oil.

The instructions to prepare the vegetables while the meat browned were right on. Of course I knew better and did the veggies first and then the meat. And found myself standing around watching ground beef brown. Not even as exciting as watching golf because with meat, you already know the outcome. Next time, veggies while meat browns.

It’s not often that I love a recipe the first time that I make it. More often, it’s the second day when the flavors have had a chance to meld. This is one of those rare occasions that was love at first bite. The olive oil taste was buried under all the spices, as was the acid in the tomatoes. My only complaint was too many beans, not enough meat. I’m not sure that I would add more meat, but I would definitely eliminate at least one of the cans of Pinto beans.

I finally found the perfect chili recipe.

Verdict: Yum!! This one’s a keeper!!

Quick and Easy Chili in Homemade Bread Bowls(Source: Cherry Huntoon, Kings Cooking Studio)

1 package frozen bread dough – 3 loaves to a package
¼ cup olive oil
1 ½ pounds ground beef or ground turkey
1 small onion
½ - bell pepper – any color
1 small Jalapeno
2 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons chili powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
½ teaspoon Cayenne pepper
3 cans Pinto beans (15-16 ounces each)
1 large can plum tomatoes (28-ounces) – whole or diced
2 cups tomato juice or vegetable juice (V-8)
Salt and pepper

Defrost the dough according to package directions. Cut each loaf into 3 pieces. Shape each piece into a ball. Place the balls on parchment lined baking sheets and set aside to rise (30 to 40 minutes). Preheat oven to 375°F. Bake until they are golden brown. Set aside to cool.

Preheat a large soup pot. Add 2-3 tablespoons olive oil and swirl the pan to coat the bottom. Add the ground meat, breaking it up with a wooden spoon.

Prepare the vegetables while the meat is browning:
· Peel the onion and chop it by hand or use a mini-chop to make a fine dice.
· Cut the pepper in half. Remove the ribs and seeds and cut it into strips ½- inch wide, then cut the strips into a ½-inch dice.
· Cut the jalapeno in half and remove the ribs and seeds, then cut it into
a fine dice. Combine the onion and peppers and put aside.
· Peel the garlic and put it through a garlic press. Do not combine the
garlic with the peppers.

When the meat is browned, remove it to a bowl and set it aside. Drain the liquid. Put the pan back on the burner and add the remaining oil.

When the oil is hot, add the onions and peppers. Sauté until they are soft, adjusting the heat if necessary so they do not get brown or crispy.

Add the garlic and cook no more than 1-minute. Be careful it doesn’t burn.

Add the meat back to the pan. Sprinkle the chili powder, cumin and cayenne over the meat and stir to combine.

Drain and rinse the beans. Add them to the pan, then add the tomatoes. Break the tomatoes with a wooden spoon, if necessary. Stir in the tomato juice. Taste for seasoning. Add salt and pepper and even more cayenne, as you like. Simmer on low, stirring occasionally, for 30-45 minutes.

Cut the top off each cooled bread ball. Scoop out most of the bread inside, being careful to not break or crack the outside. Fill the empty bread bowls with chili. Serve with diced onions, shredded cheese, crackers and/or hot sauce, if desired.

Recycle: olive oil bottle, pinto beans and tomatoes cans, tomato juice bottle or can

Compost: onion skins, garlic skins, ribs and seeds of jalapeno and bell peppers

Quick Chocolate Cake

2009-09-15T13:53:00.002-04:00

Woo hoo! Summer is over. The cooler temps of fall have tempted me back into the kitchen. So this past weekend when I experienced a sudden urge for chocolate, instead of opening the freezer to check out the ice cream situation, I turned on the oven.

Normally when I have an urge for chocolate, I bake brownies. They are fast and easy. But in this case, I had no butter in the house. My thoughts then turned to cakes. Coincidentally, I had just finished the last of the Half & Half (used in a pinch when I have no milk) that morning. What to do, what to do?

I know! This is a great opportunity to try out that recipe I saw in Better Homes and Gardens for a chocolate cake that uses no eggs and no milk. It is made in one bowl and bakes in a 9x13x12-inch pan like brownies. Instead of frosting, the recipe suggests ice cream, whipped cream or a dusting of powdered sugar. Plus, the recipe is the brainchild of a BHG reader so it has to work, right? Who submits recipes that don’t work?

So I greased up my brownie pan, dumped all of the ingredients at once into a bowl and mixed. The recipe says to beat until the “well combined”. I did but it didn’t have the consistency of cake batter. I beat some more. No dice. Crossing my fingers, I poured the rather runny batter into the pan and popped it into the oven.

And forgot to set the timer. No problem! I’ll just take it out when the sides start to pull away from the pan. Which they did. Before the middle finished baking. Experience has taught me that if I had left it in the oven, the edges of the cake would have burned before the batter in the middle baked all the way through. So out it came.

After it cooled, I tried a piece from the cooked edge. The texture was very light as was the taste. I could barely taste any chocolate. No way that this would stand up to ice cream or whipped cream. Those require a dense cake with a strong chocolate flavor. All baked goods taste better the second day, so I tried another piece the following day. Still light texture but with a stronger chocolate flavor.

Yes, this is a quick chocolate cake but it’s not a very good one. I should have realized that there was a good chance that this recipe would neither work nor taste very good. The reader who submitted the recipe wrote the following in the category of Favorite to Make: “I love to bake pies!”

Verdict: What were they thinking???

Quick Chocolate Cake(Source: Better Homes and Gardens Magazine, July 2009)

3 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
2 cups cold water
⅔ cup vegetable oil
½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. white vinegar
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla

Heat oven to 350°F. In large mixing bowl combine all ingredients. Beat with electric mixer on medium to high speed until well combined. Pour batter in a greased 9x13x2-inch baking pan.
Bake 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near center comes out clean. Serve with ice cream or whipped cream, or dust with powdered sugar.

Recycle: vegetable oil bottle, vinegar bottle, vanilla bottle

Raspberry Blueberry Vanilla Cheesecake

2009-07-26T20:26:00.003-04:00

One of my coworkers has her birthday at the end of July – blueberry season here. The last couple of years I have made blueberry pies for the occasion. This year I decided to try something a little different. The idea of doing a blueberry cheesecake occurred to me. I went looking online for a recipe and found this one that also includes raspberries. The reviews were really positive, so I decided to try it.

Since I already had some almonds, I decided to use them instead of hazelnuts. I also left out the vanilla beans, which are expensive, and skipped the heating-the-cream step; instead, I added another teaspoon of vanilla extract to the filling. I also used lowfat sour cream. I didn’t want to try using lowfat cream cheese or substituting anything for the whipping cream because I wasn’t sure how that would affect the texture of the cake.

Like the recipe for Nanaimo Bars, this recipe takes a long time, but can be done in stages. In this case, I needed the cake for a Friday afternoon, but was able to make it over three evenings.

The recipe is pretty well written, but a few comments may be helpful. First, it tells you to use a 9-inch springform pan with 2 ¾ inch high sides. The reason for this is that the pan is FULL by the time you add the sour cream topping. Fortunately, when I refrigerated the cake before adding the final fruit layer, it shrank down about ¼ inch from the top of the pan, which gave me room to add the jam and fruit. Speaking of which, the directions say to “brush” the jam onto the cake, and then “brush” the rest of the jam over the fruit. I just dripped the jam on with a spoon, and then spread it over the top of the cake with the back of the spoon. This worked okay for the first application, but using a soft pastry brush would probably have been better for glazing the fruit.

As you see in the photo, I had run the crust only about halfway up the sides of the pan, not realizing how much space the filling was going to take. Whether I should have spread the crust out thinner, or whether the crust recipe ought to be enlarged to make maybe 1 ½ times as much, I’m not sure. The crust seemed hard when I ate it, and I was thinking I should have spread it thinner, but my boss said he thought it was just right, and I wasn’t inclined to argue with him.

When I realized the pan was going to be FULL, I was afraid that, because the crust didn’t go all the way up the sides, the filling would leak out during baking, but it didn’t. Well, actually, when I removed the foil from around the bottom of the pan, it was buttery (both the foil and the bottom of the pan). I think some of the butter seeped down when the crust baked. But I don’t think the batter itself leaked out. In any case, wrapping the bottom of the pan with foil is a good idea.

This cheesecake came out beautifully, with a lighter, creamier texture than cheesecakes often have. It went over very well with my coworkers. Even the woman who doesn’t care for cheesecake liked it. The vanilla beans might have added something if I’d used them; as it was, the vanilla flavor wasn’t that pronounced, but then it didn’t dominate either. This is a great cake for a summer party.

Verdict: Yum!! This one's a keeper!!

Raspberry Blueberry Vanilla Cheesecake
(source: www.epicurious.com; originally published in Bon Appetit, August 1997)

For crust
1 1/2 cups ground shortbread cookies
1 cup hazelnuts, toasted, husked
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For filling
2 vanilla beans, split lengthwise
1/3 cup whipping cream

3 8-ounce packages cream cheese, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup sour cream
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
4 large eggs

2 6-ounce baskets fresh raspberries
2 6-ounce baskets fresh blueberries
1 tablespoon cornstarch

For topping
1 cup sour cream
3 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/3 cup seedless raspberry jam

Make crust:
Preheat oven to 350°F. Finely grind ground cookies, nuts and sugar in processor. Add butter and vanilla; process until moist crumbs form. Press onto bottom and up sides of 9-inch-diameter springform pan with 2 3/4-inch-high sides. Wrap outside of pan with foil. Bake until crust is light golden, about 15 minutes. Cool. Maintain oven temperature.

Make filling:
Scrape seeds from vanilla beans into heavy small saucepan; add beans. Add cream and bring to boil. Cool completely. Discard beans.

Using electric mixer, beat cream cheese and sugar in large bowl until smooth. Add vanilla-cream mixture, sour cream and vanilla extract and beat until well blended. Beat in eggs 1 at a time.

Gently mix 1 basket raspberries, 1 basket blueberries and cornstarch in medium bowl. Pour 2/3 of filling into crust. Sprinkle berry mixture over. Pour remaining filling over berries to cover. Bake until cake is golden and begins to crack around edges but still moves slightly in center when pan is shaken, about 1 hour 10 minutes. Let cool 10 minutes (cake will fall).

Make topping:
Mix sour cream, sugar and vanilla in small bowl to blend.

Gently press down any raised edges of cake. Spoon topping evenly over cake. Bake 10 minutes. Cool cake on rack. Refrigerate overnight. (Can be prepared 2 days ahead. Keep refrigerated.)

Melt jam in small saucepan over low heat. Brush some jam over top of cake. Arrange remaining berries atop cake. Gently brush berries with remaining jam. (Can be made 8 hours ahead. Keep chilled.)

Run small sharp knife around pan sides to loosen cake. Remove pan sides. Place cake on platter. Serve cold.

Recycle: vanilla bottle, sour cream container, berry baskets (if possible), jam jar

Compost: eggshells, hazelnut husks, vanilla beans

Lowfat Brownies

2009-04-17T22:31:00.002-04:00

I saw this recipe in the paper and was intrigued. Lowfat brownies...sounds like a good idea…and the Christmas cookies are all gone, so I need something...This recipe particularly interested me because it includes chocolate chips in the batter, which I’m always in favor of.

These are lowfat brownies (despite the chocolate chips) because there is no butter or margarine in the recipe; applesauce is used instead. Experienced bakers may already be familiar with this trick. I have a recipe for very good, relatively healthy muffins that employs this strategy. In fact, several years ago, groceries sold a fruit puree marketed specifically as a fat substitute for baking. I haven’t seen it in a long time, and I forget what it was called, but it came in glass jars and was a blend of applesauce and one or two other fruits. The directions on the jar suggested that it might be preferable to substitute it for only half the fat in a recipe so as not to affect the flavor. I remember making a batch of chocolate chip cookies, I think it was, using the stuff, and I realized their advice was good; if you used only the fruit and no butter/margarine, your cookies had a distinct fruity flavor. Maybe okay for oatmeal-raisin cookies, not okay for chocolate chip.

And that is a bit of an issue with this recipe. I ate the first brownie when they were still a bit warm, and noted that, although they were good and moist, there was a slight fruity taste. It’s not bad, really; just unexpected. However, I discovered the next day that the leftover applesauce I’d used to make them was cinnamon-flavored, which may have had something to do with it. If I make these again, I’ll be sure to use plain applesauce. Also, after the brownies had cooled, I didn’t particularly notice a fruity flavor, though they did taste a little – different, somehow. The texture is very cakelike. The brownies are also heavy and a tiny bit sticky, which might not please everyone. And – maybe worst of all – I didn’t think they were quite chocolate-y enough, though the chocolate chips do help. Still, if you’re looking for a somewhat healthier brownie, these are worth trying.

Verdict: Hmmm...I might make these again.

Lowfat Brownies

(source: The Gardener News)

1 cup all-purpose flour

½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder

¾ cup sugar or combination sugar and sugar substitute for baking

½ tsp salt

½ tsp baking powder

2 tsp vanilla

½ cup unsweetened applesauce

2 eggs

½ cup chocolate chips or mini chocolate chips

½ cup chopped pecans or walnuts (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line an 8-inch square pan with foil so that foil extends over the edges. This will make it easier to remove the brownies from the pan. Spray the pan with non-stick spray and set aside.

2. Combine the dry ingredients in a medium bowl. Stir or whisk to combine.

3. Combine the vanilla, applesauce and eggs in another bowl. Add this mixture to the dry ingredients along with the chocolate chips and nuts (if desired) and stir to combine.

4. Spread the batter into the prepared pan. Bake in the preheated oven for 28-30 minutes, or until the top is shiny and just starting to crack and a toothpick comes out clean.

5. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool 5-10 minutes. Carefully remove the brownies from the pan, using the excess foil as handles. Cool and cut into squares. Dust with powdered sugar, if desired, before serving.

Recycle: applesauce jar, vanilla bottle

Compost: eggshells

Bishop's Cake

2009-04-01T01:12:00.004-04:00

My introduction to pound cake came at the Bronx Zoo during one of family’s rare vacations. I don’t remember why we hadn’t breakfasted at the hotel or in one of the many inexpensive diners in Manhattan but I do remember being confronted with a single serving package containing a slice of yellow cake as my morning repast.

I had neither seen nor tasted pound cake prior to that morning. Based on the light texture and flavor of this novel confection, I couldn’t understand why it was called “pound” cake. At the time I chalked it up to being something British and named after their currency.

Years later when I started baking and tried to duplicate the airy texture and delicate flavor that I remembered, I discovered why it was called “pound” cake. Every recipe that I tried produced a dense, heavy cake that tasted mainly of vanilla.

A few weeks ago, while browsing through my Silver Palate cookbook, I came across this recipe. I’m not sure why they call it “Bishop’s Cake”. It’s nothing like a traditional Bishop’s Cake. The note that goes with this recipe refers to it as pound cake. What caught my eye were the 5 eggs and the lemon juice.

Five eggs means five egg whites which when whipped enough should provide a lighter texture and the lemon juice in addition to vanilla might recreate the flavor that I associate with pound cake.

I beat this batter longer than called for in the recipe. And I struggled with the aluminum foil. I struggled even more getting the cake out of the bundt pan. But in the end, it was all worth it. While not exactly what I was hoping for, this is the closest I’ve ever come to recreating the pound cake of my youth.

Verdict: Yum!! This one’s a keeper!!

Bishop’s Cake(source: The Silver Palate Cookbook: Delicious Recipes, Menus, Tips, Lore from Manhattan's Celebrated Gourmet Food Shop)

½ pound (2 sticks) sweet butter
2 cups granulated sugar
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
5 eggs

Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour a 10-inch bundt pan.

Cream butter and sugar gradually; beat until fluffy.

Sift flour and add to butter mixture. Stir just enough to blend.

Add lemon juice and vanilla; stir well. Add eggs, one at a time, missing well after each addition.

Pour batter into the prepared bundt pan. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. (after 30 minutes, cover cake closely with aluminum foil.)

When cake is done, cool in its pan on a cake rack for 10 minutes. Remove from pan and cool completely.

8 to 10 portions.

Recycle: vanilla bottle

Compost: egg shells

Lasagna

2009-03-29T21:16:00.004-04:00

I LOVE lasagna, but I don’t make it very often. The one recipe I had was rather laborious, and the result just wasn’t satisfactory, though I could never figure out just what was wrong with it. So I hadn’t bothered making it in, oh, years, probably.

Then last week I bought a package of ground beef at the supermarket. On the front was one of these peel-off labels, on the back of which, once you peeled it off, was a recipe for lasagna. The idea of making lasagna sounded appealing enough that I decided to try it.

I was a little concerned about using prepared spaghetti sauce. I was even more concerned about the fact that the recipe didn’t say to cook the lasagna noodles first. The recipe I’d used before had you do that. This was a pain because the cooked noodles were slippery and tore easily. In the past I’d seen boxes of lasagna noodles that mentioned that they didn’t need to be cooked beforehand, but when shopping for this dish I couldn’t find any like that. Uncooked noodles are much easier to handle, but would they cook sufficiently during baking?

Yes, as it turned out. The noodles came out fine. In fact, the whole thing came out fine. Even with basic, store-brand spaghetti sauce, the flavor was very good. Maybe not quite as good as you can get at a good Italian restaurant, but good enough. And the preparation is relatively simple.

A note on pan size: the recipe calls for an 11 ¾” by 7 ½” baking dish. I made this in a pan that is 12” x 8” and about 2” high, and it was full. I advise putting a cookie sheet under the pan when you bake this, because it did bubble over a bit. Also, instead of putting all the cheese mixture in the middle, I put half where it's called for in the recipe and the other half on top of the second layer of noodles.

Nutritional note: the recipe calls for part-skim ricotta. At the supermarket I happened to read the nutritional label on the part-skim ricotta, and was appalled. It does have a little less fat than the whole milk kind, but not much less. So I used fat-free ricotta instead, and it was fine.

Verdict: Yum! This one's a keeper!

Lasagna
(source: National Cattlemen's Beef Association)

1 pound ground beef

1 jar (26 to 30 oz) prepared spaghetti sauce

1 can (14 ½ oz.) diced tomatoes, undrained

1 container (15 oz.) part-skim ricotta cheese

1 egg, well beaten

¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese

1 tsp dried basil leaves, crushed

6 lasagna noodles, uncooked

2 cups (8 oz.) shredded mozzarella cheese, divided

1. Heat oven to 375°. Cook ground beef in preheated large skillet over medium heat 4 to 6 minutes or until no longer pink, stirring occasionally to break up ground beef into pea-size pieces. Pour off drippings. Add spaghetti sauce and tomatoes with liquid to skillet, stirring to combine; reserve.

2. Meanwhile combine ricotta cheese, egg, cheese and basil.

3. Spread 2 cups beef mixture over bottom of 11 ¾” x 7 ½” baking dish; arrange 3 lasagna noodles in single layer, pressing into beef mixture. Spoon ricotta cheese mixture on top of noodles; sprinkle with 1 cup mozzarella cheese. Top with additional 2 cups beef mixture; arrange remaining noodles in single layer, pressing lightly into beef mixture. Top with remaining beef mixture, spreading evenly to cover noodles.

4. Bake at 375° oven 45 minutes or until noodles are fork tender. Sprinkle remaining 1 cup mozzarella cheese on top; tent (loosely cover) with aluminun foil. Let stand at least 15 minutes before serving.

Makes 8 servings.

Recycle: spaghetti sauce jar, tomato can, cheese containers if possible

Compost: eggshells

Toffee Bars

2009-03-23T13:34:00.000-04:00

A borrowed my Silver Palate cookbook recently and when she returned it, I flipped through it. I hadn’t looked at it in years. I was surprised to find a lot of really good recipes and wondered, at first, why I had never tried any of them. Then I remembered. It had been a gift many years ago from a cook that I greatly admired. At the time, I was still cooking for an extremely fussy eater. Trying out new recipes was difficult enough. Ones calling for exotic ingredients were out of the question.

These days, I’m cooking for a very adventurous eater: me! I love sampling new dishes, especially if they feature new flavors. Or old favorites that were not on the fussy eater’s approved menu. For my first stab at cooking from The Silver Palate, I decided to go with Toffee Bars. I love toffee, especially with chocolate.

My only quibble with this recipe is that it calls for an egg yolk. One egg yolk. You know how much I hate to waste ingredients. What am I supposed to do with a single leftover egg white? The cake part of the batter came together beautifully and spread without much difficulty in the pan. The chocolate melted on cue and also spread with much difficulty in the pan.

The recipe calls for the cake to be cooled completely in the pan. Yes, the cake cools, but the chocolate is still runny. It needs to be refrigerated to prevent it from oozing all over your dish and fork (or fingers in my case). And therein lies the problem. After cooling but before refrigeration, the cake part of the bars is delicious. It’s fluffy and toffee-y. After refrigeration, the bottom layer becomes hard and sandy, without a distinctive flavor.

I couldn’t decide. I don’t dislike this recipe but I don’t love it. Easy to make but tastes only “eh”.

Verdict: Not bad, but I won’t be making this again.

Toffee Bars(source: The Silver Palate Cookbook: Delicious Recipes, Menus, Tips, Lore from Manhattan's Celebrated Gourmet Food Shop)

½ pound (2 sticks) sweet butter
1 cup light brown sugar
1 egg yolk
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
12 ounces semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup shelled walnuts or pecans, coarsely chopped

Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease a 9 x 12 inch baking pan.

Cream butter and sugar. Add egg yolk; beat well.

Sift in flour, mixing well, then stir in vanilla. Spread batter in the prepared pan. Bake for 25 minutes.

Cover cake layer with chocolate chips and return to oven for 3 to 4 minutes.

Remove pan from oven and spread melted chocolate evenly. Sprinkle with nuts. Cool completely in pan before cutting.

About 30 bars.

Recycle: vanilla bottle

Compost: eggshell